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Picture Credits: Screengrab
Till Our Lives Burn Out
Chapter 6 – This Is How We Fight
(Part 4b)
… Two hours later, Setsuna awoke with a start. She had just had a dream, and this time she remembered it. She was standing in a very alien, but transcendently beautiful place. To her immediate left were the walls of some sort of edifice -a castle maybe or a cathedral- of gleaming white with impossibly high spires, through the hollows of which the wind echoed and occasionally seem to generate an almost musical sound. She stood on a cobbled floor of the same white material that, in true dreaming fashion, seemed to blend into the sky not too far away from her. Except where the edifice interrupted it, all around her was a sky filled with stars and streaked in that deep purple of the night, and she could hear the waves of an ocean she could not see crashing on a shore. She was in a flowing gown of white that blended perfectly into the white cobble stone. In fact, she almost looked like a beautiful flower that had arisen out of it. She could sense that she was waiting for someone to come and dance with her. Indeed, the longer it took, the more she longed for that person to come, and when the sound of the wind resolved into an ethereal waltz-like tune, someone did appear. He was masked, and wearing a formal suit –not a tuxedo- but something from before the tuxedo had been invented. As the person came up to her, she bowed and he held out a white gloved hand. The music was in a 6/4 time, good enough for waltzing.
As they began to dance, a child’s voice joined in the music, singing a beautiful descant above the main melody. She danced haltingly at first, but eventually, her movements synched perfectly and she began to hope that the man behind the mask was the one person she longed for. By the time the music was about to end, and the person was about to remove his mask, she was flooded with warmth for she was certain it was him. Then, with that sinking feeling one only feels when a dream begins to go badly wrong, the mask came off. It wasn’t him. Nor could she tell if it was the one she feared it might be were it not him. There was nothing there, no hint of who she was dreaming about: no face, no eyes, no mouth, just a black emptiness that began spreading out from that un-face, down the suit and its cloak, down the trousers to the floor, and from thence it turned everything black. The child’s voice faded away, almost like a guttering candle flaming out. Then the wind stopped, the seas were silenced, the white edifice was blackened, and the stars went out one by one. It was then that she awoke, and something happened that rarely did. She began crying as the words “I can not, I must not, I must never,” went round and round in her head.
She only cried for a minute or so, and in any case, she had to stop because she heard Haruka’s car pulling into the driveway. She quickly recovered her composure, but when everyone came in, she told them that she needed to get some rest, and asked them to have dinner out or delivered. Haruka said that was no problem. She too was still recovering from Saturday’s exertions, and though she was the one who’d done all the work, she noticed that Michiru was also listless today. She said that Saturday it felt like everyone was expending a great deal of energy pulling for her success.
“Yes,” said Setsuna, “perhaps we did.”
Hotaru asked if she was all right as she headed up the stairs. She nodded, and came back down to hug her. She quickly readied herself for bed, and sat reading a journal. As she drifted off into sleep, she hoped that she would have no more such dreams, and as she fell into unconsciousness, once again that odd wish that Peter Kuryakin had called her tonight was the last thing she knew.
He did call, but by that time, Setsuna was asleep, and it was really Hotaru he needed to talk to anyway. Everything had arrived, and was ready for Tuesday night.
The extra sleep did Setsuna a world of good. The troubling dream from yesterday seemed mostly a matter of a tired mind. If it had meant anything at all, she had decided it meant that the thing she’d determined to do either today or tomorrow was probably the right course of action. As she went through the day’s classes, she rehearsed various ways of ‘doing it’ as gently as possible. She owed him that at least. She did not dislike him. Quite the opposite. Any time she could keep him at a distance - as with the phone calls, she liked him very much. When he was a real and unpredictable person in her presence … that was different. Still, she thought she ought to do it face-to-face, and wondered where to have him to meet her. As the sun was setting on this Tuesday night in the second week of December, and she walked down the driveway to their house, she was certain she would be able to do it without too much difficulty.
She was wrong. When she opened the door to the house, caught the smell of dinner being cooked, and saw a tall silhouette moving around in the kitchen, her heart sank. Hotaru had done it again. She’d left her key to the house where he could find it, so he snuck in around three that afternoon, and even Haruka and Michiru were caught by surprise. Hotaru met her at the door. There was a part of Setsuna that wanted to scream bloody murder at this point, yet it was held in rigid check by the fact that Hotaru was dressed up in the most adorable little maid outfit.
“Good evening, Miss Meioh,” she said very formally, as though Setsuna had just arrived at some elegant manor for dinner with a lord and lady. “Please allow me to take your things, and then I will show you to your table.”
The kitchen table had been removed and a smaller more intimate one had take its place. Everything was done in the finest style, lace table cloth, fancy napkins, three stick candelabra, the works. Despite the attempt at formality, Hotaru clearly reveled in describing just how much trouble Chef Kuryakin had gone to for the evening’s menu. At some expense, he’d had fresh White King Salmon flown in with some Alaskan King Crab to make crab-stuffed salmon. The risotto and braised, sliced avocado sat on a warming tray next the salmon. Dessert was a Sacher Torte next day aired from Vienna. Gourmet coffee sat percolating off to one side. The wine was a ‘mystery’ blush that had been decanted into an unmarked bottle.
‘Why did he have to be so good at everything?’ Setsuna thought, as she sat at the table, inwardly fuming.
Once she and Kuryakin had been served, Hotaru carried dinner for Haruka and Michiru to the upstairs living room, where she would join them, so Setsuna and Kuryakin could be alone. But not before she mentioned Christmas Eve was a mere two weeks away.
“She has quite a bit to learn about subtlety,” Kuryakin chuckled after she had gone.
“Indeed,” Setsuna mused. “Well then, shall we?”
The light hearted beginning aside, Kuryakin was watching Setsuna very closely during dinner. Very little was said. The meal was as good as any as she’d ever had even in the best restaurants. Setsuna was pretty hungry, and ate with an enthusiasm tempered only by what she still fully intended to do when the meal was over. Only once did her determination waver. It was, oddly, when she took her first sip of the wine. It was a particularly interesting taste, and one she couldn’t quite place. One usually serves a dry or semi-dry white wine with seafood. The dry was there, but without compromising it in the least, there was a sweetness that was vibrant but it did not overwhelm the taste of the meal in any way. It was a different kind of sweetness, there and unmistakable, but … simply there. The more of it she drank the more curious the effect became. It was, as one would expect, intoxicating, but somehow it sharpened rather than dulled. As she finished the main course, he rose to get her coffee and a slice of the Sacher-Torte.
“Miss Meioh, have you ever had one of these before?”
“No,” she replied.
“Well, some people say that the Sacher-Torte looks better than it tastes. Unlike American confections, it has not been drowned in sugar. The chocolate has quite a bite to it, which personally I like. It is definitely meant to be had with coffee though. It’s also very good with champagne. Now that I think of it, I wish I’d brought some.”
Here again one of those strange thoughts popped into Setsuna’s head. ‘Why not go get that bottle of Hennessy Grande Haruka had gotten her for her birthday?’ She quickly burst that balloon, too. Mister Kuryakin’s very interesting wine already had enough of an effect on her.
“I am certain it will be delicious,” Setsuna said, as he sat the cake and coffee in front of her. “This has been a most excellent meal. You … do things so well.”
“You really think so?”
“Yes,” she said, unable to stop the sad look on her face. Setsuna thought over the situation. The man was in love with her, and falling deeper still. He always gave of his best, and Hotaru was proof enough that it didn’t matter whether he was courting someone or ‘just trying to help.’ She sighed inwardly. He had no intention of going away … on his own. This was not unexpected, and even a bit flattering, but … She remembered how he too had noticed Hotaru was listening in on them last Tuesday before he left. When he forced her to either explicitly give or deny him permission to court her, she wondered if he knew exactly what she was doing. If he didn’t, then he had merely intended for her to speak loudly enough to put Hotaru’s mind at ease, or to plainly reject him –which may have had consequences for Hotaru the next day. The real worry was if he had understood. If so, he apparently intended to take her at her word until she finally told the truth. And what was the truth?
Hotaru sat humming a little tune as she surfed the internet on Haruka-poppa’s laptop. She had gotten out of her maid costume, and finished dinner. She didn’t care much for the braised avocado, but the salmon and the risotto were very tasty, and though she had tea instead of coffee, the Sacher-Torte was just right. Haruka and Michiru were still eating. Initially, they both dug in, but the quality of the food compelled them to slow down and savor each bite.
“I have to admit this is very good,” said Michiru.
“Restaurant quality, and this wine is quite good,” said Haruka, as she tossed off the rest of her glass.
“Yes,” said Michiru, as she got up, “before we have desert, I want another glass.”
“Hmm, get me another too, will you?”
The truth was Setsuna did feel something for him. Sometimes it was so strong it nearly overwhelmed her millennium of learned restraint and self-discipline. He was good. Maybe, ‘perfect.’ Perfect for her. And he was getting to her, getting too close, too close to her, to Hotaru, even, in some strange way, to “the Kittens,” – too close to … everything. All these things were true. But the final truth was that she was never going to have anyone. That was what the dream meant. Any attempt to alter that fundamental fact of her existence would bring down everything and …
Finally he spoke.
“Miss Meioh, if you’re still interested, I am prepared tonight to honor our bargain.”
“Our bargain?”
“Yes, I am prepared to tell you the whole and unadulterated truth about me. If you’re interested,” he reiterated.
Apparently, she wasn’t.
“I had thought you … understood what I was doing last Tuesday,” she said, quietly after a pause.
“Oh?” he said, sighing. “And what were you doing, Miss Meioh?”
When she didn’t answer right away, he amended the question.
“Perhaps I should ask what is it you think you were doing?”
“I was making sure that Hotaru succeeded, and that we accomplished what we meant to the day we hired you.”
“Hotaru’s grades came in Friday morning. What do you think you were you doing after that?”
“So you did understand, Mister Kuryakin.”
“Miss Meioh, I am never going to believe that you don’t feel something for me.”
“I do not.”
“Then why didn’t you end it Friday night?”
“Hotaru wants to see us together. But I think she’ll understand …”
“… if it just didn’t work out. So you wanted to play it out for a while and hoped I’d behave myself and then after an appropriate amount of time … It was a fine deception, Miss Meioh. Except, I don’t believe you, that is, -and forgive my arrogance, I don’t think, deep down, you really know how you feel.”
The conversation, as always with him, was not going the way she wanted it to. And as always, it angered her.
“Why did you go along with it?”
“Two reasons,” he said, “for Hotaru, and because sometimes people become the thing they are pretending to be. Or realize they already are.”
And had this gone on much longer, he might well have been right. She had to end this, now.
“Mister Kuryakin, I am sorry to be so blunt,” she said, turning away from him, “but it was not you I was thinking of the night you kissed me.”
She had said it evenly and firmly. And it was a lie. She knew it was a lie, and she was momentarily terrified to think he may have known it too. She was also surprised at how much it was hurting her to say these things.
“Look me in eyes and say that again.”
She turned, and began summoning the strength to do it, but the look on his face said that he would not believe her as loudly as if he’d said it audibly. She wavered, and wondered now whether he would ever give up, if she would ever be rid of him. Still, she had said enough to make it plain she did not want him no matter how she may have really felt.
He turned and walked out.
After she heard him drive away, she went to the door and looked out. She sighed, and again took note of how much this was hurting. In all her dealings with time and space, there was always a feeling that the ‘winds of history’ were at her back. No matter how hard, even Machiavellian, the task, she could reconcile herself to it, because the overall goal, the teleology of what she knew must be, was being fulfilled by her actions. Tonight that feeling was gone. Gone as if it had never existed. She shuddered a little at the thought. Then she put it aside, and went to the kitchen to clean up. As she did, she wondered what happened to that bottle of wine.
Chapter 6 – This Is How We Fight
(Part 5)
Epigraphs:
Faust: ... What to all of mankind is apportioned
I mean to savor in my own self's core,
Grasp with my mind both highest and most low,
Weigh down my spirit with their weal and woe.
Mephisto: Oh, take my word, who for millennia past
Has had this rocky fare to chomp,
That from his first breath to his last
No man digests that ancient sourdough lump!
Believe the likes of us; the whole
Is made but for a god's delight!
Goethe’s Faust
“Pragmatism is great in theory, but it doesn’t work in practice.”
– Sidney Morgenbesser
"Beautiful, this suffering in the moment of destruction.”
-Sailor Saturn, Infinity Arc (Manga)
It took Hotaru only two days to realize what had happened. She noticed that Kuryakin had, apparently, left very suddenly. She tried to call him the next day, and got no answer, so she left a message. He did not return it. She tried again Thursday. Nothing. She thought of a roundabout way to bring it up. Friday morning, as they finished eating their breakfast, she came right out and asked.
“Setsuna-momma.”
“Yes, Hotaru?”
“When are you and Mister Kuryakin going out next?”
Setsuna wasn’t quite sure how to answer this. She was hoping, against hope it seemed, that Hotaru would not notice for a bit longer. It was a sign of just how much she had emotionally invested in this that she so closely ‘monitored the situation.’ Strangely, Michiru intervened.
“Hotaru, come upstairs with me, please.”
Haruka looked at her with surprise, as did Setsuna.
“Yes, Michiru-momma.”
They entered her and Haruka’s bedroom. She sat down on the bed and patted the space next to her. Hotaru jumped up and settled in.
“Let Setsuna be for a while.”
“Why?” Hotaru said after a pause. “It doesn’t seem to be bothering too her much.”
“That’s because she hides things so well.”
“I really want to know what happened.”
“It’s really not your business.”
“It was her, not him, I’m sure of it,” she said, not really listening to Michiru.
“Hotaru, you did your part. You brought them together. It just didn’t work out, that’s all.”
“You mean, they spent a lot of time together and decided they weren’t compatible?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not true. She spent as little time with him as she thought she could get away with. She was just pretending. Leading him on, I think it’s called. Because of me, I guess.”
“Oh goodness, you are quick, little princess,” Michiru said with a sigh. “I did warn you about this. I’m afraid this sort of thing is always going to be a troubled story with us. The truth is, even among the Inner Planet Senshi, this doesn’t go smoothly either. They all act boy crazy, and they mean it, as much as they can, but none of them –except for Usagi, of course- would know a long term relationship if it jumped and kicked them. None of them really has anyone either. They’re really rather childish, where as we were ‘born old’ as they say.”
“Childish or ‘born old,’ it doesn’t seem to make any difference one way or the other. Except for the Princess, and you and Haruka-poppa, I guess we are all doomed in this regard. So,” she added moodily, “I guess there’s no point in asking if he can teach me until April.”
“Hotaru, I’m not going to try and tell you how you should feel, but you should consider that you might have to forget about him.”
Her eyes misted at the thought of that.
“Why?”
To Hotaru it was a terrible thought to begin with, made the more so by how it revealed that Michiru-momma apparently didn’t understand at all how she was feeling. Hotaru herself hadn’t quite understood it either, but that was a cold thing to say.
“Setsuna was … very firm about it.”
“You saw it happen, didn’t you?”
“Heard it, yes. When I went down to get some more of that remarkable wine. And I know that it was difficult for her to do.”
Hotaru was looking more disconsolate by the minute.
“I know these last four months were a fine time for you,” Michiru continued, sensing she needed to apologize for something. “It was nice having someone kind and thoughtful fretting over you like that.”
Hotaru thought for a few moments about that. “You’ve always done that.”
“Well, I mean …”
“You mean a man doing that?”
“That, and he was an outsider, yes.”
“That was the nicest part. He wasn’t obligated in any way. I mean he was, but it wasn’t just a job to him. I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“Yes, I know that for a fact,” said Michiru.
“I caused this. If he’s hurting, it’s my fault.”
“Of course he’s hurting. It would have happened sooner or later, even without any help on your part. He is very much in love with her, and … well, I did warn you,” said Michiru, very maternally.
“No. If he’d done it in his own good time, it might have worked,” Hotaru said glumly.
“Hindsight is always perfect, eh? I really doubt the outcome would have been any different.”
“I’m sure that Setsuna-momma felt something for him.”
“I think you’re right.”
“And it didn’t matter one bit in the end,” she said, as an unbidden tear trickled down her cheek.
There was a knock at the door of the bedroom.
“Michiru? Hotaru?” Haruka’s voice called through the door. “It’s time to go.”
As Hotaru followed Haruka and Michiru around school, she was trying to piece together what, exactly, happened and wondering how she felt about it. The longer she thought on it, the less pleasant the answer became. It was when they passed the room where she had taken her written tests that the sense of foreboding that had been all but annihilated in the last four months sprang upon her like a panther on a lamb. Fear, a bit of anger, her own love for her teacher, her certainty that Setsuna was, in some way, denying herself and the unresolved ‘why’ of it all combined in her mind, and gave birth to this resolution:
Tonight, the Cold Look was going to get a real workout.
On the way home from Funabashi Academy, Michiru noticed she had a message from a music store in Kisarazu where she had taken her violin bow for restringing. They were nearly home but the message said her bow was ready. Always loathe to have her violin or any part of it out of her keeping one minute longer than necessary, she asked Haruka to turn around. As Haruka checked the traffic to make the turn, Hotaru asked if they could take her home first.
“Are you sure?” Haruka asked. “What if we take you to Choeki’s Bakery for a strawberry treacle tart?”
“I’d just rather go home, but … thank you, Haruka-poppa.”
They dropped her off and she went inside.
“I wonder if leaving her alone like this is a good idea, just now,” said Michiru as they headed back down the driveway.
“We’ll come straight back, but the music store is only two blocks from the bakery. I’ll run get her a tart while you check the work on your bow.”
When Setsuna got home, Hotaru was sitting in the receiving room, listening to that music box Kuryakin had given her. As she stood at the door putting her jacket up in the closet, she sighed. On the whole, she actually had a pretty good day at the university. For the first time in three days, there were moments where she had actually been able to forget Kuryakin-san completely. Well, almost anyway. That melody instantly resurrected everything she’d begun to bury. She went into the kitchen to start dinner, or actually to finish it, since tonight was going to be leftovers night, and she had only to reheat everything. After tolerating two more iterations of the tune, she said, “Hotaru, please put that away, and go wash up for dinner.” Hotaru said nothing, but complied. Ten minutes later Setsuna called to her.
“Hotaru, dinner is ready.”
She came down the stairs, sat in her chair, and looked straight ahead. Setsuna brought her some of the casserole, and poured her a glass of lime soda. Outside, Haruka and Michiru were pulling into the driveway. They had taken only forty minutes to complete their errand, but as they came in, an argument was underway. It had started simply enough. Setsuna noted Hotaru’s moodiness. She easily guessed what it was about, and decided it would be best to get it out in the open.
“Hotaru, please talk with me. Tell me of your thoughts.”
She did, and it quickly and unexpectedly escalated. Neither of them had gotten loud –yet- but it was such a shock, they might as well have been screaming at the tops of their lungs.
“You have very strong feelings for him …”
“… I do not …”
“ … and you used him, and you hurt him. And you did it willingly. ”
“No,” said Setsuna, calmly enough for the moment, “that is not true. I did not do it happily, which is what you really mean.”
“Oh? Well, if you did not do it happily, then it must be because you do feel something for him.”
Setsuna took a deep, calming breath, and said, “Hotaru, I did what was necessary to see you through those tests, and to complete the purpose for which we let him teach you in the first place.”
“Don’t try to hide what you did behind me. You hurt him and I’m ashamed of the part I played in it. And I am ashamed of you. Of us all,” she added, for Michiru and Haruka were standing in the door way. “We just use people; we’ve even used each other. We must really think we’re something.”
‘Oh boy,’ mouthed Haruka to Michiru. Whatever part Kuryakin-san and Setsuna’s feelings for him might have played in all this, it was clear that Hotaru had long been pondering all the great existential questions concerning the Sailor Senshi: duty, destiny, methods, outcomes, everything was about to come under scrutiny. Hotaru’s time with Kuryakin may have brought it out, but neither of “The Kittens” could blame him, since it would have come out sooner or later. This was shaping up to be an interesting next few minutes.
“Hotaru, you are being unfair.”
“Our princess is ‘that which embraces all things,’” she continued, undeterred. Everything she’d been thinking all afternoon was going to come out. “We, on the other hand, are really quite cold and snobbish. We love only what we want to, and tolerate only where we have no choice. I’ve never in my life, met someone - who wasn’t one of us- that cared more about me than about himself. He was in love with you the moment he saw you. He even accepted me, without reservation, though he knew I was going to be trouble. He didn’t need our money. I believe now he would have taught me for free, except that would have been too obvious of him. I can’t believe you couldn’t see what a good man he was.”
“I could see it, yes,” Setsuna admitted. ‘Where is all this coming from?’ she wondered. It wouldn’t be the last time she would ask that question this evening.
“That just makes what you’ve done all the more … ugly. How cold of you. We’re all so cold. I am the called the Soldier of Silence, of Death and Rebirth. It sounds all cool and mighty. I even thought there was beauty in the suffering at the moment of destruction. I suppose there is, but there’s no getting around how it is like the beauty of a woman dying in childbirth, desperately, even hopelessly, trying to give birth to something better. The one good thing about me is that in using my power, I had to go down with whomever I was destroying, so at least I avoided the hypocrisy of destroying worlds from a safe distance. You went down with me, the last time - the last two times really. Remember how that hurt?”
Haruka and Michiru looked down at the floor. Regarding “the last time,” they were never glad to remember that. They had done the best they knew, and they had suffered, too, and died, but the failure, the futility, of that feigned betrayal was something they could never live down, even though Pluto and Saturn had truly forgiven it as “the way we fight.” As Sailor Starfighter had noticed, only the faith that if they failed somehow Sailor Moon would still win the day had given them the courage to try it. None of that made it any less painful.
“Why do we see threats everywhere? Y’know what our real transformation is? When we become ourselves again, instead of these weapons we’re made to be. That’s what we are, living weapons always watching for the next great battle. When all you are is a weapon, everything looks like a war and everyone looks like an enemy. Or just something else you use to achieve your ends. It’s one thing to do that in a desperate fight. It’s another to do that in a peaceable time to someone who never did any harm. The Inner Senshi have it right. A weapon is something you lay aside as soon as you safely can. They know that good has to be lived and enjoyed as well as defended. You can have your unrequited love, keep fulfillment at bay for all time and feel all tragic if you want. You want tragic? Up until now, the only time I ever awaken is when something must be ended, and me along with it. I’ve never lived. Now that’s tragic. Perhaps it’s good that we don’t have much to do with the Inner Senshi, or with her. We might mess them up.”
“Hotaru,” Setsuna said, urgently and even desperately. “Where is all this coming from? What is wrong?”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I know what I really am now, what we all are. We’re the sacrificial lambs. We are expendable. We aren’t allowed to get too close to anything or we might not be able to ‘do what is necessary.’ Y’know what I am? I am the Self Destruct Mechanism, the Doomsday Weapon, and the Destroyer of the Invalid Old. I know now. The Moon Kingdom had a tiny flaw at its heart. I don’t know what exactly, but I’m sure there was something and I’ll figure it out. When Reality finally revealed the flaw, I was summoned, and dropped the Glaive. Queen Serenity may not have known it. Or maybe she did. But I know why she gave her life: so that something better could be born.”
Hotaru was getting a very focused and impenetrable look on her face.
“Has it? Is this better? There was no choice, but still, she should have never let us be born on this earth. Not us Outer Senshi anyway. We’ve been isolated and at our posts too long. We see the light of our queen and princess, but we were too far away to feel any warmth. We don’t even know what it feels like or how to feel anymore. But now I’ve lived, and felt the warmth, and it’s good. I’ll do my duty when the time comes, but I’m never going back out into the cold. I want to live, and love, and dream, and drink the cups of sorrow and joy down to the bottom. And the next time I do my duty, I want to do it having felt everything there is to feel, even the worst things: every pain, every crushed hope, every broken heart, every pang of death. I will hold nothing back till my life burns out.”
“Has he been teaching you these things?” Setsuna asked.
She looked very dejected now. “Not in so many words. He taught me by being who he was. You don’t understand. You’re still doing it. Seeing an enemy where there is none so you can justify what you’ve done. And you’re using me to keep yourself hidden from your own heart. I know there’s something there. You have no idea what a wonderful thing I’ve experienced over these last few months. You even saw some of it yourself, like that night at the hospital. I know what it is to be surrounded by the warmth of our Princess - by being with him. He is like her. He has the same light, the same warmth. It’s different, too; active, not passive. But somehow, it’s the same. Now it’s over. He’ll never want to see me, because to see me he’ll have to remember you. Now I feel what people feel when something special to them really comes to an end.”
“Hotaru …”
“I know you care for him.”
“No, I do not.”
“You’re lying, Setsuna-momma.”
“Hotaru!” she yelled, and then immediately regretted it. It was the first time she’d ever spoken in anger to her. Hotaru’s thoughts had run their course. She looked at Setsuna, hurt and tearful, and quailed before this rebuke; she was indeed a very obedient girl. The deep and abiding love shown to her by all her guardians so obligated her, she felt, and yet he could not understand why Setsuna refused to admit it. Actually, she realized, she could understand. This was how Setsuna became Setsuna, putting duty before all else, even herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel something for Kuryakin-sensei; she just couldn’t believe her own hopes merited any consideration in the big picture ever before her garnet eyes.
“I think he knew what I was doing, and went along with it,” said Setsuna, by way of apologizing for the anger with which she’d just spoken.
“I think you’re just hoping he did,” she said, finding unexpected strength to reply, “so you don’t have to feel any guilt over it.”
“I do not feel any guilt over it.”
Perhaps she didn’t. Perhaps this was part of those many things that she had not yet grasped about Setsuna Meioh and her alter ego.
“If he did go along that just makes it worse,” she said, sulkiness creeping back into her voice. “It means he cared enough about me to let you do that to him.”
“I do not think he is hurt, really.”
“Then you really don’t see how in love with you he is.”
“Then he shall have to get over it. It was necessary. You had to get through those tests. Now that is done. He is an outsider. Not one of us, nor part of us. Has nothing to do with us,” Setsuna said softly and apologetically. “He was getting … too close. He is very smart. Who knows what he might have figured out? There is something strange about him and he hid it from us.”
“There’s something strange about us and we hid it from him.”
“Of course, we did. Hotaru, you are being unreasonable here. We cannot have … ” This conversation was going around in circles, Setsuna realized. Really, it was about one thing, and one thing only. She went to her, turned her chair out and put her hands on Hotaru’s shoulders.
“Hotaru, listen to me. I … I am never, ever going to have anyone that way ..."
(Word Limit Reached)
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Help Us Stop Plagiarism -
Nearly all works at PnP are original. However a few people choose to plagiarize.
To check, choose a phrase from the work, then either drag and drop to the search box or copy and paste.
click on search and works at Google will be shown which match. Just to be sure, please do this before
you recommend or rate the work highly...
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Select a Random Work
from Stories
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