diyos@mediaone.net

DISCLAIMER:
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi. This story
is a work of fiction based on the series. Please, don't sue.


THREE YEARS AND AN ETERNITY
(A Short Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Alternate Universe Story)


I have been in love, madly, for three years and an eternity.

"Could I buy those flowers?"

"Of course, 820 yen please."

Every Friday for three years she has visited my flower shop, and asked
the same question. And each time, I smile and nod politely, and say
the price of that particular bouquet. I suppose we might have become
close, we might have talked, and we might have become friends... and
then something more.

We might have if she had not been so beautiful that day, if she had
not been unapproachable and a dream creature conjured from a book. I
did not find the courage to see if the fairy tale was true then, I
have not yet.

She has sad eyes. They are alive in the sunlight, but I can see that
there are dead ashes buried underneath them. Something is within them
though, a sleeping phoenix of fire and rebirth. I have watched her
often enough, and know her well, though I do not know her name-

That is right. Three years, and not a single syllable of her name has
reached me. We have said the same four phrases to each other for three
years.

Could I buy those flowers?

Of course, 820 yen please.

Here you are.

Thank you.

And then she walks off, and I bask in that intimate embrace of words
(and it is intimate I assure you; for what other words are needed when
we already know each other- when the eyes and soul communicate? When
words are not enough, and never will be?). And at the moment when I
watch her leave, the possibilities run through my mind as I run over
my lips with my tongue and feel the hot morning.

My friends used to tell me quite jokingly that I am in love. Now they
remain silent about the affair, and I cannot help think of how grave
they are now when they look at me with their eyes. I think they
suspected, long ago, the depth of my feelings for her.

And it scared them. Scares them still, I think.

I have been in love, madly, for three years and an eternity.

For what other label can there be, when a single person runs round and
round the mind? When the circular orbs of her eyes haunt me in the
night like the pale moon above Tokyo, or perhaps more fittingly, the
blood red, consuming, passionate speck of Mars in the far distance?

But she does not love me, not yet.

She is beautiful, and it could have started out and ended like those
fabled stories. The princess and the rogue, the beauty, and well...

It has been a maddening three years. I own the flower shop now, and
six or seven dozen more like them. Oh yes, to be sure, when we had
first met and she bought her flowers, I really was the poor flower
boy.

Things change however, well, most things.... I still am the flower boy
in the precious five minutes when she comes.

She is so beautiful, and I still do not know her name.

I could go on about how she looks, I suppose, maybe even write a song
or two. I have a gift with lyrics they say, though I prefer being a
businessman than those bum garage bands you see everyday. Really now,
me a musician? I do look like one. I have long hair, its black, and
rather scraggly in my opinion. But just because you look the part, it
doesn't quite mean you're fit to play it.

Three years.

I've never seen her tote around a cross before, or wear the trappings
of a Miko, but she seems religious somehow; deeply religious. She is
beautiful, did I mention that? She has long hair, impossibly
beautiful, and sometimes in the half shadows at the close of dusk when
I see her walking to her home, the dying orange sun shines on her, and
those errant long strands look like they are made of fire.

"Here you are."

I hand her the flowers, and her change. Her hand brushes mine as the
cold coins clink together, and she smiles.

"Thank you."

She walks a few steps past me, and then, I come to a revelation.

"It's a nice day today, isn't it?"

For one terrifying moment, I am afraid that I might have released some
mystic spell. Our ritual for three years, each time making me feel
more empty, and it is broken. Will she vanish into thin air, a faerie
that I have hallucinated and dreamt? Will she...

"Yes. It's beautiful today."

They are the first words besides "Thank you," and "Could I buy those
flowers," that I have heard from her mouth, and an absurd sense of
fulfillment rushes through me. I will die without her, I realize,
though the fact does not truly surprise me.

I have been in love, madly, for three years and an eternity.

"Can-can I walk with you?"

The moment the words come out of my mouth I am mortified. For a false
moment, I think that perhaps someone else has said them. I would never
do that. Not in three years. What is happening to me?

What have I done?

"I-" she looks surprised, but then she smiles that smile again, the
one full of exuberance and curiousity. My heart flutters, hoping,
dreading, dying-

"Of course. But won't your boss be mad at you?"

"Nah, business has been slow," I say smoothly, though my heart wants
to jump out of my chest and my hands are sweaty enough to water the
entire flower shop.

"Oh." She smiles.

I am uncontrollably in love.

The dark afternoon begins to look brighter as I walk with her, both of
us in silence. It could not have been more than a minute, but to me it
is an eternity, the climax of whatever pathetic life I may have had
before I met her.

She stops, and looks towards the gate in front of her. I look up, and
suddenly there is a feeling of dread within my stomach. So this is
where she has been bringing the flowers.

The gate leads into a green field, resplendent with monuments.

It is a graveyard.

"Sorry to bring you to such a place," she says, "you can wait for me
outside."

"N-no, I'll walk with you."

She nods, and continues on. I realize a moment too late that perhaps
she might have wanted some privacy, that reflecting before the grave
of one she had loved and still misses would be better in solitary
introspection. I cannot stop though, and my body betrays me by
continuing forward, as if drawn and leashed by the sight and scent of
her.

We walk past the dead and the forgotten and occasionally a flower,
newly brought, juts out colorfully from among the stones, alive and
ghostly.

She stops by a grave, and leans down and deposits her flowers,
beautiful pink pale carnations. I look the monument over, noting the
clean area around it, and the barely wilting flowers that surround the
black stone.

The name is of a man's, and it burns into my mind, and turns to
liquid.

This man is still alive, I think, he is alive and he is loved. A surge
of jealousy rises through me, and I fight to keep it down. I must be
insane to be jealous of a dead man, but as I watch her caress the
stone that bears his name with a lover's touch, I feel sick, and
enraged.

"He didn't even know me," she says softly to me, to anyone, and my
anger collapses the moment she speaks. "I just... I don't know. He
died in a car accident a long time ago, and I have never met him. But
I saw his picture and... and in my dreams..he is my prince." She
trails off wistfully, and I look in hate and envy over the dead grave.

"Yuuichiro," she says to me, and for a moment, I am confused. I
haven't told her any-

"Yuuichiro...?" I say, and my confusion must have transmitted the
unspoken question to her.

She looks at me oddly, and then smiles, "Your nametag, silly."

I look down, and note with an amused and half-crazy smile my tag, the
one that for three years I had placed on without a second thought. And
which most costumers never bother with.

Three years.

"I'm sorry," I blush, "but-"

She isn't listening to me I notice, and instead is staring intently at
the embossed engraving on the grave, running her hand through the
nooks and crannies that make up her lover's name, her unknown prince.

"It's been almost three years since I've found him," she suddenly
reveals. "Three years! What a long time to be bringing flowers to
somebody you don't even know except in your dreams. To somebody you
found by feeling, by just knowing they're your prince. Sounds a little
crazy, doesn't it?"

"We're all a little crazy," I say automatically, and then close my
mouth, willing her to continue. There is something perversely
fulfilling about her spilling her secrets to me, letting me inside her
own psyche. It is an intimate link that I revel in, no matter how much
it disgusts and disheartens me to listen to her profession of love.

She speaks softly, dream-like. "You know, when I first touched the
grave, he seemed to be speaking to me. Three more, he said, three more
and he would rise and take me with him. It was a whisper in my head,
like the crackling of a fire. Have you ever listened to the crackling
of a fire? Its...well...I guess I really am a little crazy, huh?"

I smile wanly, sickly. Three more? Who is this man? "No, not at all."

"Oh I waited for three days, and nothing happened, until I realized
that he hadn't said days, no, not days, but he must have meant years,
or decades, or centuries maybe. Three more and he would take me and we
would live in the kingdom above the skies. And I will wait for him
until he arrives."

"Oh?"

"Yes. In my dreams, he is a general, or a king, or a prince, I don't
know, only that he makes me feel...safe. Like no-one else."

"Like no-one else," I repeat dronely. I am dimly aware of the feeling
that the story seems insane, unbelievable. But there was no mistaking
that she was in love, and is still in love. How stupid of me, to think
that I could even have a chance. The grave glints in the sunlight,
mocking me. A fantasy!- a fantasy mocks me!

"Three more years will be tomorrow. I think- I think he will show
then."

She is silent afterwards, and I wait until slowly she turns to me,
"I'm sorry Yuuichiro, for bringing you here."

The smile is still on my face, and I shake my head, "No, its okay.
Really."

Then, suddenly, a light gleams in her eyes. "Oh my! You don't know my
name, do you?"

I laugh, "and I'm afraid you don't know mine, either, miss."

She looks confused, and is about to contradict me when I shake my
head. "My nametag has the name of my cousin who had worked there
before. It was just until my former boss would get around to ordering
me a new one and- well..." I chuckle a little.

She looks embarrassed, and then suddenly smiles. "Well then, we can
really introduce ourselves to each other then."

"My name is Tsukino Usagi," she says, and holds out her hand.

I take it, reveling in her soft and warm flesh, and help her up.

"Kou Seiya."

She nods happily, "I-I have to leave now, Seiya. I'm sorry. Maybe I'll
pass by your store tonight."

I shrug. Tonight...at midnight perhaps, that is when she will walk to
the grave, and there meet her dream lover.

"No problem, Usagi. I'll wave to you if I'm awake at the night-shift."

She laughs, a tinkling, beautiful sound, and I laugh lightly with her.
I wonder if she suspects that I will be very awake when she comes?

She and I leave the graveyard, and I return home, and ponder, and
think and look out minute by minute at the slowly approaching dusk.
Night will fall soon, and she will be there, I can see it in her eyes.
I know her soul. At midnight, or perhaps just a little afterwards, she
will come to that grave, and wait.

For her dream lover.

He will show, I am sure of it. Hell and heaven and everything
in-between would not stop a man who had her heart. The question now
was whether I would be there too.

No, that's not it. The question is what I will do when I am there.
Will I let her leave, content in her happiness, or will I fight for
her? It will be a hopeless battle, I think, one that can only end with
wounds on both sides and me as the loser.

A slow, malignant plan forms in my mind as the dark skies slowly eat
away at the afternoon light. I have thought of it for so long, ever
since the day when I found myself giving her the flowers and vowing
that next time, next time I will say they are free, and for her, and
if she would like to have coffee with me someday.

I will fight tomorrow for tomorrow, even if it means destroying the
soul.

There is no question to what I have to do now. I grab my jacket, and
then I open the drawer and take out a simple object, but one perhaps,
that can ensure my chance of living with her forever, of being bathed
in her wonderful presence for all time. The metal circle opens beneath
my hand with a soft click. My hand slowly thumbs it, hearing the loud
clicking whirr as I wind it. There is an insane hope in me that she
will hear the music, and turn away and find me, and love me. I have
had this gift made two years ago, and I cannot think but that now,
finally, I will give it to her. I slip it into my pocket, and shiver
as I step out into the cold night air.

The flower shop is on the way to the graveyard, and there I pick up a
bouquet of roses, the most expensive and deep red. They will go
beautifully with her. On the way, the moon smiles down at me with its
lopsided grin, lauding and prodding me on towards my goal. It is
partly covered by the sky.

The moon is bright tonight.

The gate is closed, but is easily opened, and the wind blows through
the graveyard, sending eerie, whispering leaves across my feet and
face and across the sea of tombs under me. The moon casts its
spotlight among the graves and as I round the hill I can see the grave
of her lover. It is glowing with a divine halo, and for a moment, a
brief, terrible moment, I see her phantomed prince, struggling to
rise, growing stronger, determined. He fades away, and I know I don't
have much time.

She is coming, I feel it in my bones, in my heart, and my grip
tightens further on the blood red roses. She has bought every kind of
flower I have sold, except for these.

I look up at the night stars, and I pray that I may succeed. There is
so much to chance, it is so close to midnight, and her prince will
come for her in the twilight with his white horse. I laugh, and the
sound echoes in the empty graveyard. Ironic, if that would happen, the
perfect picture of Romance, of saving the damsel from the ogre.

No, I am not an ogre, I...

I have been in love, madly, for three years and an eternity.

There is a stirring in the wind, in my soul. A moment later, I begin
to breathe heavily as I see the pale gold of her head as she makes her
way up the hill. She does not see me. It is night time and I am
against the moon's light. I must seem like the shadow of a grave to
her, a pool of darkness not like the ones that already surround her
presence.

An eternity passes, and I can see her clearly.

When she is near I drop the roses, and they fall with a soft sound at
the man's grave. I do not know his name, and I do not care, she is the
only one that matters. My enemy will not have her.

The roses are a consolation prize.

I hear a groan that seems to come from everywhere, and a shiver runs
down my spine. I know it is he, fighting, desperate to get to her. Her
prince is here, he is coming, trying to rise like a deserted god using
the last vestiges of his power.

The sound of leaves and the soft thud of the roses causes her to gasp,
and then squint, and through the light of the moon that illuminates
her face I see the look of incredible, childish ecstasy.

"E-Endymion?" she asks hopefully, and begins to run up the hill,
occasionally stumbling but never taking her eyes off my silhouetted
figure. My heart is thudding in suspense. How long until she realizes
it is me? How far will she be?

She is crying I realize, and then she is only a few feet away as she
completes her journey up the hill.

"Endymion!" she cries out, and I smile, and my heart and breathing
seem to slow.

"Usagi."

She stops abruptly, and I think excitedly that she is only an arm's
length away. She is near enough for me to touch her without
stretching. My plan comes to my mind, quickly and cleanly and I
believe, a little insanely. It is an insane plan after all, one that
relies on emotion and belief and wild hope.

Please let this work.

"S-Seiya?!" she asks, confused and and disappointed and a little
frightened.

The hand in my jacket tightens, and I bring out my gift to her. It
shines in the moonlight, and her eyes widen when she sees it. It is
beautiful, in so many ways. It has to work, it has to. I could not
lose her to her prince, or anyone else. How would I live? I have to
catch her, now, before her prince comes, and takes her away from me
forever. I have to take her and hide her away from his seeking eyes.

The music begins to play.

"Please, Usagi, accept this."

"What? N-no, S-Seiya..."

It is too late for her to back away, and then the round metal of the
loading chamber clicks as it moves forward, and a great note, like an
orchestra drum and a thousand violins fills the night. She gasps,
stumbling back and falling and ending the symphony.

"ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE!" I can hear the graveyard screaming, the
sounds of the dead wailing higher and higher into the night and
filling my ears with their desperate chants. I laugh, and the music
plays until I cannot play it anymore.

Kneeling, I take her body and embrace it.

"Wh-why?" she croaks, blood coming out of her mouth and out of the
small, gaping holes in her chest where the bullets have passed
through.

It worked; she'll never leave me now. I bury my head in her hair,
tasting and smelling her. She'll never leave me now, and I'll hide her
away from her prince until he gives up. Oh yes, she'll never leave me
now.

I can hear the impotent prince scream in frenzied agony, and the night
owls and crickets screech a deafening choir-song to his cry. Too late,
far too late.

"Oh Usagi," I murmur, and the wind blows, rousing up the red petals of
the dropped roses and swirling it around us.

"I have been in love with you for a very, very long time now."

And it is true.

For I have been in love, madly, for three years and an eternity.


End.









P.S. somebody was obviously the victim of a twisted imagination.

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