Author: Abigail aka Moonchild aka Drive Me Mercury
Email: abigail@makenai.org
Rating: PG-13
Chapter started: 3-02-03 Chapter ended: 3-05-03
Disclaimer: Sailor Moon and all characters and settings belong to
the one-and-only Naoko Takeuchi. All created characters and plots within this
story are my own.
Warning: I’ve been
forgetting to put this in previous chapters, but for those of you who are
sensitive, this will be shoujo-ai
(female/female) in future chapters.
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~
*Chapter 4*
-Chasing After You-
Miya’s mind was a storm of
questions and confusion. Those men on stage – Three Lights – who were they? Did
they have some connection with her own past? And if not, why had she felt such
a strange connection with them? In their song, she had been drawn into the
melody and it felt as if they were singing solely for her. They each had incredible
auras, like she had felt from no other human before, but she was drawn toward
Seiya’s more than the others, and she couldn’t understand why. Since she was a
young child she had felt things and sensed things that other children might
laugh at if they knew, but never like this. Never with this intensity.
Which was why she now had
burning desire to find out exactly what kind of people Three Lights were.
She couldn’t believe her
luck when she spotted the figure escaping in the opposite direction that most
of the crowd was dispersing in now that the concert was over. She squinted in
the sunlight to make sure her eyes hadn’t deceived her. He was now wearing a
rumpled gray T-shirt and worn jeans, hands shoved deep into the pockets. He
kept his head down so that his face was shielded by the low brim of a dark
baseball cap, which also served to hide the long black tail tucked underneath
its crown. Dark sunglasses covered his eyes - but his aura was unmistakable.
The other two were nowhere
in sight, but the fangirl screams directed at a departing black limousine were
an obvious hint. That only made Miya wonder why her stalkee was not with them.
Perhaps the limo was nothing but a decoy.
She lost him several times among all the people, only to spot the ubiquitous
figure once again, walking away at a steady pace like a thief hoping to blend
in and escape unnoticed. Once away from the throng and back on the normal
streets, he slowed his steps. Miya followed at a safe distance, even though the
man seemed too absorbed in his own thought to notice the short girl lingering
several yards behind.
At one point he stopped in
front of a flower shoppe, as something in the window display seemed to attract
his attention. Oblivious to anyone around him (in the same way all except one
person on the street paid no attention to him), his fingertips lifted to touch
the glass that stood between him and a lovely bouquet – small, delicate
orange-colored blossoms gathered in clusters on their stem, framed by long
tendrils of green leaf. From her vantage behind a streetlight, Miya watched the
private moment in silence. She didn’t even know him, but she wanted to know
what he was thinking, and what was troubling him. Did the flower hold a special
meaning for him? After several seconds, he turned to walk away, but then
another sight in the window caught his eye. His hand drifted from the orange
flowers to another one.
Miya craned her neck
trying to see what his new object of attention was, but his body blocked her
view. Intensely curious, she stepped out… straight into the path of a woman
with an armful of groceries. She cringed at the sound of twelve aluminum soda
cans clattering to the ground together with several other goods, as she
stuttered a quick apology. The noise startled Seiya from his reverie and he
looked straight in their direction. Feeling her heart jump like she’d just been
caught, Miya ducked behind the woman she’d just bumped into busying herself
with picking up the spilled groceries. When she popped her head up several
seconds later, he was already walking the opposite direction. She abandoned the
already irritated woman to her own mess to start following her target again
before she lost him. But before she did, she peered in the flower shoppe window
and saw the second thing that Seiya had been so interested in:
Pink roses.
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~
“Didn’t you feel it?
During the last song.”
“You think it was –her-?”
“It wasn’t the Princess,” the
auburn-haired man stated matter-of-factly as he set his teacup down on the
coffee table. “It’s not the same energy.”
Now away from the
overwhelming crowds and fans, Three Lights were back in their modest private
apartment. The room was dim, since no one had bothered to turn on a light while
the sun slipped slowly behind the city skyline. The one who had just spoken was
Taiki, tallest and most level-headed of the three. Yaten, the silver-haired
shortest band member, lay stretched along the length of the sofa, slippered
feet propped up on one of the cushioned arms. Meanwhile Seiya, their
raven-haired companion and passionate leader, paced the floor,
uncharacteristically deep in thought. He had opted to walk home today after the
concert instead of riding with Taiki and Yaten, but the long walk hadn’t helped
to clear his head. He probably had more questions now than ever before.
“Then who?”
“What does it matter?”
Seiya stopped midstep. “It was an answer, wasn’t it? We know that our message
is reaching someone. That’s hope, isn’t
it?”
This caused Yaten sit
upright and confront his partner. “We don’t want it to reach anyone but her! Our message is only for one person, Seiya. And one
person alone.”
“I know that, Yaten,”
Seiya glared, resenting the hidden accusation in the other boy’s tone. The
other two could never understand his feelings.
“All we can do is keep
singing,” Taiki stated.
The silver-haired idol
fell back onto the sofa with a sigh. “I’m tired of singing,” he whimpered.
“For god’s sake, Yaten,
quit complaining! You’re the one who just said we’re doing this for our
Princess’ sake,” Seiya snapped, not in the mood to be compassionate, even if he
did feel the same way.
“Stop it,” Taiki
interjected, ever the peacemaker.
Yaten returned a deadly glare
at Seiya but let it drop. After another disappointing concert, he didn’t have
the will or energy to argue tonight. He watched the arms of the ceiling fan
move lazily around their axle. Turning, turning, but never going anywhere.
After a minute or so, he broke the silence. “If it wasn’t the Princess, whose
energy was that today?”
“I don’t believe it was
any human’s,” Taiki replied, taking up his tea again.
“An enemy, then?”
Yaten craned his neck
around when Seiya seemed to ignore the conversation and move with a sudden
urgency toward the apartment’s single window. “What are you doing?” he frowned.
“I saw something move
outside.” His two companions only exchanged cocked-eyebrow glances while Seiya
shoved the window upward to let in the cool evening air and stuck his head
outside.
The alley was empty. Was
it his imagination? But he could swear that for just a moment he had seen a
face – a child’s face. ‘You’ve really lost it, Seiya. Now you’re having
hallucinations.’ Perhaps he was just tired, but
the image of that face kept coming back to him – the one in the front row of
today’s audience. For some reason she felt oddly familiar and he couldn’t place
why. Yet at the same time he knew he’d never seen her before in his life. And
the mysterious response to their song that day made the feeling even stranger.
A slight breeze played through the window and tingled on his skin, sending the
slightest shiver through his body.
“I’m sure it was nothing
but a cat or a rat on the windowsill,” Taiki spoke.
“Yeah, close the window
already,” Yaten grumbled. “That alleyway stinks.”
“In any case,” Taiki
continued with the previous conversation, “it may have been an enemy, but I
don’t think we should be worrying about it. It was too faint to warrant much
concern.”
“No… it was stronger,”
Seiya spoke softly to the quiet alleyway… unaware that he had just been
overheard by a small figure pressed against the brick building exactly beneath
him.
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~
Authors notes: This
chapter was supposed to be longer, but as I’d fallen behind and people were
already asking when it would be out, I decided to post what I had written. I’ll
try to make the next chapter longer. If you’re wondering what the flowers are
supposed to mean that Seiya was looking at, yes, there’s a bit of symbolism
there. The orange flowers are obviously olive blossoms and represent Kakyuu.
And if you read the prologue you can figure out who the pink roses are. I never
meant to carry that metaphor beyond the prologue but perhaps now I’ll make it a
theme running through the whole story.
Thank you so much all the
readers. ^_~ And if you ever want to make a comment or suggestion or just say
hi, drop me an email.