AN.
Hola minna-san!  Gosh, long time no see...IÕm sorry... ;;  IÕm also sorry about 
this fic.  ItÕs an R break-up, like we donÕt have *enough* of them floating 
around... but I thought IÕd um... join in the fun!  Or something.  


Disclaimer:
RENT and all its wonderful characters (Angel!) belong to the late Jonathan 
Larson.  Sailormoon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi.  Both genius in their time.






No Day But Today 
 by Antigone 2000

 "Who do you think you are?
 Little girl, hey, the door is that way.
 You better go, you know the fire is out anyway.
 ....
 A heart can freeze.  
 Or it can burn.
 My pain will ease, if I can learn:
 There is no future.  
 There is no past.
 I live this moment 
 As my last
 ....
 Long ago you might've light up my heart
 But the fire is dead 
 And never ever gonna start
 ....
 There's only yes
 Only tonight
 We must let go
 To know what's right

 I trust my soul
 ....
 Who says that there's a soul?
 ....
 My only goal, is just to be
 ...
 Just let me be!!
 ....
 There's only here.
 Give in to love, 
 Or live in fear
 No other path
 ...
 Come back another day
 ....
 No other way
 ....
 Come back another day
 ....
 No day but today
 ....
 Another day
 ....
 No day but today"

 - Another Day, RENT
 ~~
 [[Usagi pounds at Mamoru's door.  He tries to get her to leave, until she
 mentions the dream, which startles him.  
 Outside the building, Luna and Chibi-Usa wait.  Upstairs, Mamoru has let
 Usagi in, but is not looking at her.  She knows now that Mamoru has had the
 same dream and that he turned away from her because he was afraid for her,
 and tries to tell him it doesn't mean anything.  But Mamoru says he's had the
 dream so many times he's begun to believe it wasn't a dream but a prediction
 of the future.  
 Usagi doesn't care about any danger if they can be together, but Mamoru says
 they can't be together, and he pushes her out the door.  She hammers at the
 door, crying that even if the world was destroyed she'd want to be with him,
 until she falls to the floor, sobbing.  Mamoru stands against the door
 inside.]]
  
 -From Hitoshi Doi's site, episode 77: "Omoiha onaji!  Usagi to Mamoru no ai
 futatabi!"
 ~~
     It's dark but I don't turn on any lights.  The moonlight is a sickly
 sort of weak glow, which does less to illuminate and more to make shadows
 across the empty, solemn room.
     Leaning against the door, unmoving in some sort of masochistic trance, I
 listen to her.  Every muffled sob stabs through my ears and the oppressive
 silence of the apartment building.  Detached, I feel the dull throbbing in my
 heart as if it belongs to someone else. I am not used to love, I was
 unprepared for this.  Utterly and completely unprepared.
     She is weakened, exhausted from crying, sobbing, and begging with every
 fiber of her being for me to understand.  She knows now, my reasons... my
 justified, sensible reasons and, therefore, logical and necessary actions.  
     And she doesn't care.  
     Of course Tsukino Usagi doesn't care what happens to her in some far,
 foggy future.  The girl lives in some sort of eternal present that keeps
 horrors of the past from haunting her dreams, and fears of what is to come
 from waking her at night.  I envy her that, but I can never understand it. 
 There are so many, many things I can never understand about Usako.  No,
 Usagi.  Her name is just Usagi now, although she still calls me 'Mamo-chan'. 
 I assume that will end soon enough, once she sees I am serious.  Funny, what
 will she call me then?  Again, that strange feeling of detachment, as I
 wonder with morbid curiosity how much it will hurt to hear her say
 'Mamoru-san'.
     She pounds on the door, little fists shaking  the frame, and I tiredly
 sink the floor.  I will not allow her back into my life.  I cannot, for I
 fear I will never be able to give her up, will endanger her future by a
 fierce possessiveness that rides barely under the surface, frightening me
 with its sudden surges when I least expect it.  So I do not open the door.
     But I will not move from it either.  I will not drown out her cries and
 I will not leave her.  She mourns openly, tearing at both our souls, and I
 mourn with her.  Tonight, we cry together, the closest we've been to each
 other in months; mere inches of paint and wood separating us.  Mere inches
 and so much more.  I lean against the solid door, wishing for an insane
 moment it would melt away, and I would find her in my arms, sobbing into my
 shirt as I comforted her.  Her tears would dampen my shirt while yards of
 butter-yellow hair would tickle my face as I tried to brush it back so I
 could see her, talk to her.  Her arms would crush me nearly painfully to her
 as they had so many times before.  I shut my eyes, scared by the sudden
 desire a simple memory could conjure.
     
     It was only a short time ago she stood before me, eyes shining up with
her amazing everlasting hope, after pounding on the door with tiny and
 deceptively strong fists. 
     "Mamo-chan!  Mamo-chan!"  I did not want her here, waking the neighbors
 and weakening my door's hinges and my resolve.  But I did so love to hear her
 calling me, her voice is as full of love as it was before I broke her heart. 
 Could that be possible for anyone but her?
     "What do you want?"  It was not difficult to make my voice angry and
 cold, I am so filled with loathing for myself, "You are really making a
 scene."
     Blue eyes didn't even waver at my harsh words, and she stubbornly stood
 there, breathlessly telling asking me to hear her out.  She must know how
 gorgeous she is.  Why was she doing this to me?
     Again, I pushed her away, started to slam the door against her cries,
 when something she said caught my ears.
     "Have you been having a strange dream, too?"  
     I couldn't help but startle enough to allow myself to meet her eyes, and
 as always I am lost.  I let her in.
     Standing in my shadowed hallway, I refused to even say one kind word to
 her, to look at her.  Her sweet, precious voice tripped from her lips
 quickly, desperately trying to convince me that this doesn't matter.  It's
 just a dream.
     I snapped and raised my voice to her, forcing logic Tsukino Usagi would
 never accept upon her.  How dare she stand there, my entire world in one
 small teenage girl, and tell me innocently that her life did not matter! 
     "I don't care as long as I'm with you," she cried.
     I slammed the door.
 "Mamo-chan!  Mamo-chan!  Onegai, Mamo-chan!"
     

     Her crying has slowed from desperate, heaving sobs to the reluctant
 hiccups of a calming child, and I hear a soft, shuddering sigh as she drags
 herself to her feet.  
      I know she is leaving, the minutes have stretched by slowly like the
 shadows thrown around my living room, and it is late.  I can't hear it, but I
 can imagine her soft small hands futilely rubbing the salty tears off her
 flushed, damp face.  Her eyes are probably bloodshot, her bangs and soft
 ringlets of golden hair by her ears are soaked with tears, her entire little
 body trembling.  I can see her in my mind; disheveled and heartbroken, and
 yet still so heartwrenchingly beautiful. 
     "Mamo-chan?"
     My only reaction to her shaking voice calling softly to me, one more
 time, is to lower my head to my arms and shut my eyes tightly.  'Please,' I
 beg silently, 'please go away.  Leave me alone.  This is my pain.  You need
 to--'  To what?  Get on with her life?  Forget me?  It is what I deserve. 
 It's is a punishment I should take ten times over to pay for the selfish,
 childish fear that swirls in my stomach at the thought of being forgotten. 
 At the thought of Usak--Usagi with anyone else.  But what do I want?  Her
 dream is to be a bride, and she can never be mine.  I'd give up my world for
 her in an instant, I did just that, actually, on a cold day months ago.  But
 I don't expect her to give up all her dreams for me.  I don't want her to. 
 At least, I shouldn't.
     "Mamo-chan?"  Softer now.  How does she know I am still here, just
 behind the door, listening for her? 
     I turn, and for a moment a rebellious hand falls to the doorknob, just
 barely grazing the cold metal.  Time seems to freeze.  
     She sighs, and I am terrified at how defeated she sounds.  I press my
 hand to the door, and I know, somehow, that on the other side she has done
 the same.  But I don't speak.  She has my answer, I can't take it back now.
     "Sayonara," her voice as the strange jumpy quality of someone fighting
 tears as hard as they can, "Mamoru-san." 
      I don't remember my knees giving out from under me, I don't remember
 how long I sat, unmoving on my floor.  Blindly, I grasp at the only thought
 that penetrated my shocked interior.  'Oh god, I did not think it would hurt
 quite this much.'  
     And something inside me broke.  I want my Usako to be here.  Now.  So
 very badly.
     My ears burning with the sound of the four syllables that shattered my
 heart, I stumble up and throw open the door.  
     "U-Usa-" I choke on the name, but she is gone, the hall is empty.
     I am no longer Mamo-chan.

     What will happen when the finality of what had happened sunk in
 completely?  Little things; I will no longer be close enough to see the tiny
 gold accents visible deep in her blue eyes, never be able to brush wayward
 wisps and curls back from her face.  She will never smile at me again, never
 kiss me again, and never hold me ever again.  
 Alone, I can still almost hear her:
   "If the world ends, I don't care" even though there may be no tomorrow,
 "as long as we are together," share today with me.  Just today.  Just
 tonight.  Just you.  Just me.
     I can't give her forever.  And she does not deserve any less than that. 
 The angel crowned with the sun, blessed with the blue of the sky in her eyes,
 the warmth of summer in her breath. I could not even give her tonight. 
     What is the use of today if you cannot have a tomorrow?  My whole life I
 have been a child without a past, and now Usako confessed through tears that
 she would not mind being a child without a future.  So all we really have is
 now.  
     "What if you could freeze 'right now'?"  Usako said that, a while ago,
 one perfect summer evening, swinging her feet off the bench we sat on and
 leaning her head on my arm, "Like a photograph, you couldn't see what was
 outside the frame.  You couldn't see an hour ago, or an hour from now, just
 right now."
     I remember not being sure what to say so I just shrugged, or made some
 non-committal sound.
     She had giggled and shook her head, "I guess that didn't make much
 sense.  I love you, Mamo-chan."  Usako added, I think so that if someone was
 'freezing right now' she would be sure to have that on the record.
     She never did make much sense.  But my tortured mind is screaming at me,
 that if someone froze right now, froze today and just looked at it, what
 would they see?  They would never know the Moon Kingdom, nor the impending
 destruction of the world.  But they would see Usako crying, my heart
 breaking.  They would hear the echo of Usako, Usagi's, "Sayonara,
 Mamoru-san."
     As much as she holds me in awe, I am not like Usagi.  I
 never will be. I am always thinking of the future.  I cannot be like her and
 live just for today.  
     But I can *give* her today.  
 Rushing to the window, I press my fist against it, over my head and stare at
 the moon.
     'What should I do?'  Shutting my eyes, I pray for a sign.  Any sign. 
 Anything.
 The feeling of Sailormoon transforming washes over me like the moonlight,
peeking all my senses.
     Good enough.  
     Maybe I am desperate, but as I rush to the scene of the youma attack I
 can't help but pray to whoever sent the sign that perhaps I have a chance to
 be Mamo-chan again.


 ~~

     Yes, my speech was about the future.  Little Chibi-Usa is from a world
 that needs help.  Perhaps it is a world in which Usagi and I do not exist,
 but it is what we need to fight for.  Fight for the future.  Live for today. 
 Neither of us can do both alone, but together...
     The night has gotten colder, December winds tug at my hair but I don't
 take my hands out of my pockets to fix it.  The moonlight does strange things
 to the water nearby, and I watch it play and dance.  No worries, it's like a
 fairy or a child as it skips on the waves.  Shaking my head, I laugh a little
 and admonish myself for flights of fancy.  In truth, I am terrified Usako
 won't come to find me.  She understands, I know she does, I saw it in her
 eyes after the battle, still unsure, still frightened.  Usako knows I can
 still hurt her someday, could she be willing to risk that again?
     "Mamo-chan!"
     Of course. Right now, she wants to be in my arms as much as I want her
 there, and that is all that will ever matter to Usako.  
     I raise my head and smile, she is running, out of breath, does not even
 slow down, and in seconds she has thrown thin arms around me.
     It has been months.  Months, and how much I have forgotten, in spite of
 me.  Senses reeling, I tighten my arms around her, her warmth thrumming
 through my veins.  Her lungs are heaving from running, her entire form
 shaking slightly as thin arms snake their way around me.  If my memories had
 for one moment given full justice to how wonderful she felt, I would not have
 been able to keep away from her for so long, there is no way.  Tightening my
 arms around her, (I think for once I rival her on the strength of our hugs) I
 clutch the denim fabric of her jacket, breathe in her scent, shuddering with
 every breathe of air she exhales onto my neck.  She is real, finally, her
 heart beating against mine.  
     I brush away impossibly silky waves of hair, finally allow myself to
 look into her eyes.  The gold fibers are there, woven in with the blue,
 shimmering with her happy tears. My hands tremble, I feel dizzy.  She is so,
 so beautiful.  Lifting her face to me, Usako's eyes slip shut.  She wants me
 to kiss her?  Shimatta, does she know what that will *do* to me?
     But I betray myself again, and bend my head toward hers.  Slowly, I shut
 my eyes lean in to kiss her, like I always have before.
     I thought I had remembered the taste of her lips, but I was mistaken
 again, jolted and drowning.  For a long, long time not another word is
 spoken, and I feel a soft dŽjˆ vu... it was always very easy to loose track
 of time and the outside world when Tsukino Usagi insists on kissing you. 
 Finally, it is she who pulls away, and looks at me timidly.  "Will I see you
 tomorrow?" she askes, slim fingers tense and clasped around my arms.  
     I can't help a sad smile to half-way grace my face.  The last time I
 kissed her like this, I left her alone again to cry.  I can understand her
 need for reassurance.  "I promise," I tell her, "I won't leave you alone
 anymore."  And she kisses me again, struggling to keep her lips from lifting
 into a smile, and I think if someone could freeze a 'right now' let it be
 this one.
     "Usako," I repeat her name, reaffirming, and she answers back.
     I am her Mamo-chan again.  Forever in this moment.  For now, that is all
 I ask.


 ~There is no future.
 There is no past.
 Thank God this moment's not
 The Last

 There's only Now
 There's only Here
 Give in to love, 
 Or live in fear
 No other path, no other way
 No Day But Today.

 No Day But Today.~

 -Finale B
 RENT


 WRITE ME!!