Beautiful Stranger
A Seiya/Usagi alternate reality fanfiction
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Yes, Rei goes to Juuban High in this story. It’s alternate universe, I can do whatever I want. If you’re wondering where Minako is, don’t worry, she’ll show up again eventually. Sailor Moon is copyright to Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha, Toei, and Bandai. Pocky is copyright to… someone, I’m sure, but I haven’t a clue who.
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“Taiki, where did you put my backpack?” I shouted, hanging over the back of the sofa with my rear in the air, while trying to look behind it.
“You left it hanging on the back of the chair at the table,” she called back, and I went off to find said backpack.
I wanted to see her again. I knew it hadn’t even been twelve hours since we parted last night, but I was already eager to get to school, knowing she was going to be there, with that incessantly cheerful attitude that was so damn addicting. But that was why I felt drawn to her – her blatant optimism, however naïve it came across as. And the mystery that lay underneath. I don’t know why, but I found myself wanting to know more about her. I admit, yesterday I’d had a blast. She was the most fun person I knew to be with. But more than that, she simply… shone. Around her, I could be myself – not some idol, not some high school celebrity, just Kou Seiya. Even if Taiki and Yaten called off the bet now, I think I would still want to hang out with her. Just because…
“Are you two ready to go?” I asked.
“What’s your hurry?” Yaten frowned, leaning against the doorframe of her bedroom.
“No reason,” I said nonchalantly. I squinted at the other girl’s face for a moment, suddenly noticing something odd. “Are you wearing makeup?”
“What’s it to you?” she replied, frown turning to a scowl.
“Yaten, you can’t…”
“Oh, fine.” She sighed, turning back into her bedroom and shutting the door.
“…What’s up with her?” I questioned when Yaten had disappeared, but Taiki only responded half-interestedly with one of her unreadable eyebrow twitches, so I let it drop.
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“Seiya, Seiya! Will you and your bandmates come sit with us? Please? Pleeease?” Odango bounded up to us at lunchtime. “You see, my friends want to meet the three of you. Come on!” And I was dragged toward their picnic spot.
She introduced her friends – Makoto, a tall brunette, Rei, a dark-haired beauty, and Ami, the blue-haired bookworm I had met before. She had apparently gotten over her crush on me and, as Odango whispered, had a shy eye on Taiki now. We sat down and joined them, despite Yaten rolling her eyes at me. Obviously she hadn’t gotten over her sour mood from this morning, or whatever grain of sand was up her butt today.
The dark-haired girl squirmed as we sat down, finally bursting out: “I can’t believe you brought the Three Lights over here. Usagi, it’s amazing, the luck you have. As if you’re even deserving of it! Going on dates with idols and such!”
“Rei-chan! Don’t be rude,” Ami scolded.
“Rude? That’s Rei-chan’s middle name!” Usagi declared and stuck out her tongue at the other girl.
“Usagi, you’re the one who practically dragged the three of them over here! Did you even give them a say in the matter? Or didn’t it even cross your mind that they might have wanted to sit somewhere else today? If that’s not rude I don’t know what is!”
“Y-you guys…” Makoto sighed, giving us an apologetic look, and from her expression I guessed that these arguments were a common occurrence.
Ignoring the brunette’s protest, Usagi retorted back, “Well, if I were them, I wouldn’t want to sit with a bossy loudmouth like you! Besides, Rei-chan, you’re the one who begged and begged me to bring them over here!”
“I did not!” the girl snapped, her face flushing.
“Did too!” Taiki, Yaten, and I sat in our places, a bit stunned. I wondered how Ami could ignore them and bury her nose in her book with a sandwich, but perhaps she had built up some kind of immunity. I decided to follow her example, shrugged, and starting opening my lunch.
“Did not!”
“Liaaar…” Odango mocked.
“W-well, I-I meant for you to ask them politely! Geez, Usagi!”
“Rei-chan, you’re just jealous that I’m friends with Seiya!”
“What does that have to do with anything?!”
“So you admit, you’re jealous!”
“I didn’t admit anything!!”
“Would the two of you mind shutting up so I can eat my lunch in peace?”
Rei and Usagi both fell silent and blinked at Yaten. Ami looked up from her book, and even I was a bit surprised by her outburst.
After a few seconds, Taiki broke the tense silence by saying coolly, “Don’t mind Yaten today. He has PMS.” I burst out laughing, spitting my tea across the grass into Rei’s lap, as Yaten’s face turned bright red. The other girls weren’t quite sure what to think. Yaten picked up her sack lunch and calmly whacked Taiki hard across the head with it, saying with a wicked grin: “That’s right! And you’ll back off if you know what’s good for you, before I really get my pantyhose in a knot.” Everyone else laughed at that, and that pretty much broke the ice. Yaten even apologized to Rei and Usagi.
As the rest of the hour passed, it came to me that one of the reasons I liked Odango was her sincerity, and the fact she didn’t seem to care we were celebrities. Her friends were like that too, and although they did ask for autographs, they weren’t like the usually rude fans we usually dealt with.
Taiki had struck up some conversation with Ami about the book she was reading (Faulk or Faust or something like that), and they were in their own little world.
“Rei-chan, give it back!!”
Ah, here we go again.
“Usagi, you’re such a pig! All I want is one!”
Odango grabbed for the Pocky in Rei’s hand, but the raven-haired girl tossed it to Makoto, who tossed it back, which quickly became a game of monkey-in-the-middle between Makoto, Rei, Yaten, and I, with Odango being the monkey, of course. She scrambled and grabbed, but couldn’t catch up to it. Finally the candy package landed in Ami’s lap. I snatched it up just before Odango could get to it.
“Seiya – give it back.” She stared me down with the most evil eye. Unfazed, I merely smiled, sat back on my heels, and slowly pulled a long, strawberry Pocky stick from the bag.
I was loving this. She glared even more, as if to say Don’t you dare. Slowly, smiling at her, I raised the stick to my mouth, and –
Crunch.
She dived. I dodged. I managed to get away, although I hadn’t expected an attack with such force. My god, you’d think I’d bitten the head off her firstborn child, the way she latched onto my jacket with her fists. But I was laughing, and managed to shake her off, and scramble away from the others with the prized Pocky while she screamed to give it back and everyone else watched with amusement.
“Seiyaaa…!!” She called after me in her cute annoyed voice as I got to my feet to run. Before I had barely taken a couple steps, I was tackled at the legs, and toppled to the ground, laughing so hard I was nearly out of breath. She was determined, that was for sure. It was a little too much fuss to be making over one half-empty bag of stolen snack, but then I was being equally stubborn in refusing to return it, switching the bag from hand to hand and hiding it behind my back every time she tried to reach for it. We rolled and practically wrestled, while I mocked her, “Come and get it”, keeping the Pocky just out of reach. Odango had the crazed determination of a chocoholic who had just had her last Hershey bar snatched away, although I don’t think she cared so much about the Pocky as she did getting it back from me.
I shifted and moved away, but she threw herself at me yet again in a full-body tackle, fists grabbing at my jacket. I was more athletically built, for sure, but she couldn’t have been ten pounds lighter than me. In a move that surprised me, she straddled my hips and put me on my back with one hand pinning down my left arm (which was holding the snack bag behind my back) and a forearm planted firmly across my torso to hold me down.
I’m sure I could have thrown her off, but I nervously realized at that moment the position I’d put myself in, and that this wrestling match was getting a bit too physical – if she felt something she wasn’t supposed to through my clothes… well, that wouldn’t be good, to say the least. And that, I told myself, was why my heart was suddenly beating so fast.
“Alright, alright…” I was prepared to give in, and started to squirm out from under her, when I suddenly felt her hand reach inside my collar.
“Hey… hey!! What are you doing?!!” I almost panicked.
“Your necklace, silly,” she said, proceeded to pull out the silver chain and little pewter dragon pendant that I always wore around my neck.
“Oh…”
“It’s pretty,” she said, examining the pendant. “Where did you get it?”
“It belonged to my mother,” I replied.
“Oh. Is she… is she… gone?”
“I dunno.”
Odango gave me a puzzled look. “What do you mean? How could you not-”
“I don’t know. And I really don’t care. She left me on the doorstep of a courthouse sixteen years ago and I haven’t heard from her since.”
She absorbed this for a few moments before saying quietly, “I don’t believe that. That you don’t care. Why else would you wear her necklace?”
I didn’t want to talk about it. I mumbled something about ‘it was just a nice piece of jewelry’ and tucked the pendant back inside my shirt.
“Here.” I held out the (now crushed) bag of Pocky.
“Oh - thank you,” she said as she took it.
“I think we should probably rejoin the others before they start to think we’re being unsocial.”
She smiled a little. “Right.”
We rejoined the others, I ignored the raised eyebrow or two I got from Taiki and Yaten, and we enjoyed the rest of the lunch break. Odango even shared her Pocky.
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