AN: Here it is! The final chapter of this crazy little story.

This was written for my dear friend FloraOne in celebration of her birthday (almost two months ago xD) and I'm SO happy that it's finally finished for her! She tells me she loves it, so I'm going to trust her on that, but I can't thank her enough for her unending patience with me and this story. I was such a BRAT about it, but she is the best encourager and beta anyone could ask for. I hope this was worth the wait, love, and here's to many, many more birthdays of writing fic for each other!

Please let me know what you think, and enjoy!

oOo

Mamoru awoke on the morning on July 1st to the loud sound of banging. He groaned and rolled over, placing a pillow over his head in an attempt to shut out the noise, but nothing seemed to deaden the sound or the throbbing in his head.

It took him about a minute to realize that not only was the banging not ceasing, but that it sounded suspiciously like it was coming from the front door of his apartment.

Cursing to himself, he stumbled from the bed clutching his head in his hand, while he walked on unsteady legs towards the door, the banging becoming more insistent with every step he took. And by the time he reached his hand out to turn the doorknob, anger was beginning to surge through him.

"Jesus Christ, what the fuck do you-" he yelled too loudly, as he swung the door open, revealing a very angry looking Usagi.

"Usako!" he jumped in surprise at the sight of her, and she pushed past him into the apartment, hastily removing her dainty ballet flats.

He watched her with wide and bleary eyes when she bent down and picked up her shoes in one, fluid movement, and before he could react, the tiny slip-ons were flying towards his face, one hitting him squarely in the nose, and the other whizzing past his left temple.

"Hey!" he cried out, rubbing the bridge of his nose in pain. "What the hell was that for?"

Usagi let out a huff of air, and placed her hands on her hips in a defiant stance. "You ruined my birthday, Mamoru-baka."

Mamoru winced at the sound of the name she hadn't called him since she was in junior high, spotty and blurry images from the night before flitting across his mind.

He could remember arriving at the karaoke place, Minako continually refilling his shot glass with some foul tasting liquor, and…

"Wait, did I sing something?" he asked, moving his fingers from the pain in his nose to run through his hair.

Apparently it was the wrong thing to ask. "That's what you remember?!" she practically screamed at him, causing his head to pound with an intensity not unlike what she'd been previously doing to his door.

"Usako, please-"

"No," she said resolutely, and with a coldness that frightened him. "You don't get to call me that anymore."

A crippling fear overtook him, and Mamoru found himself leaning against the wall for support. Closing his eyes, he tried to recall what exactly had made him suddenly so disgusting in her eyes, but nothing solid would come to him.

"Usa, what...what happened at your party?" he asked quietly, managing to reach his arm out towards her, but she stepped back further away from him.

Tears had sprung up in her eyes, and he had to bite back the urge to hug her like he normally would, reminding himself over and over that she obviously wasn't in want of his comfort at the moment.

"I knew you could be mean, Mamoru, but I never imagined you could be so impossibly cruel," she whispered, her small hands clenching into balls at her sides.

Her words slammed into him with a force that made it hard to breathe, and his vision blurred out of focus while his mind raced for a way to fix this, to fix whatever it was he had done, but the only clear thought that would come was that he couldn't lose her.

"Usak...Usa, tell me what I did," he pleaded with a voice that practically screamed with desperation. "Please, I...you have to let me make it right somehow."

"Make it right?" Her voice become more shrill and shaky with each word. "You come to my birthday and claim you love me, and you want to know how you can make it-"

"I did what?" Mamoru interrupted, voice stricken with horror, and memories of her tear-stained face from the night before began to grow clearer. He could remember the feel of a mic in his hand, Motoki dragging him out, and Usagi's horrified face as he rambled on about how much he…

Oh, god.

How could he possibly fix this? Tell her it was a joke? That he didn't mean it? But those options failed as quickly as they came into his mind. He couldn't lie about loving her.

And that thought led to the gut-wrenching understanding that his worst fear had finally been realized. Mamoru had told Usagi he loved her, and she hated him for it.

She took in a ragged breath, her nose wrinkling up in annoyance at having her speech cut off so unceremoniously. "You...you jokingly told me you loved me last night. You were so drunk, I should have known you wouldn't even remember it," she said with a bitter laugh that sounded so, very wrong coming from her mouth.

His jumbled thoughts managed to make sense of some of what Usagi was saying, and he took a step closer to her. "Usa, I would never joke about-"

"And the worst part is, you know I've been in love with you since practically the beginning, and you did it anyway, and now everything is ruined, Mamo-chan," she cried out the last part, finally unable to hold back her tears any longer.

Mamoru stood rooted in place for a brief moment, still trying to process all that had happened since Usagi had come crashing in to his apartment just a few minutes before. But when she wrapped her arms around herself, her sobs becoming broken and anguished, his instinct took over, and she was in his arms.

She curled into him, her head burying in his chest as he did his best to soothe her. But when she had calmed enough to realize where she was, so pushed away out of his arms, and turned her back to him.

"Mamo-chan, I can't do this."

He walked to her in just two, long strides, and wrapped his arms around her from behind. His heart beat wildly, but a feeling of relief was beginning to spread through him. "Yes, you can."

oOo

"Ok, so, we'll do dinner here, at Mako-chan's restaurant, then drinks and dancing at the club Usagi loves, and theeennn, off to Shibuya for Karaoke!"

Mamoru sighed in frustration and rolled his eyes. "No. Karaoke. Minako." He did his best to emphasize every word to drive his point home.

Makoto looked up from her busy hands, folding napkins in preparation for that evening's dinner rush. "Mina, please stop trying to get a rise out of Mamoru."

Minako dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand. "Ugh. Please. He's lucky to even be here after that fiasco he caused last year."

"Thank you for that completely unnecessary reminder, Minako," he deadpanned, annoyance radiating from every part of him. "But we're not doing Karaoke. You know that's not what she wants."

A smug expression made its way onto Minako's face. "It's not what she wants, or it's not what you want, Mamoru?"

He glared at her from across the table, and Makoto sighed, her hands pausing their task briefly once more. "Mina…" she said with the barest hint of threat behind her words.

Minako sat back in her chair, and folded her arms, pouting in a way that made her look eerily like Usagi. "You know, Mamoru, just because you're Usagi's live-in boyfriend, doesn't mean you get all the say in everything."

Mamoru couldn't help the smirk he sent her way, as he closed his laptop, and leaned over the table towards her just slightly. "Doesn't it though?"

The blonde scoffed at him as he gathered his things. Slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder, he paused to say goodbye. "As pleasant as this has been, my live-in girlfriend is waiting for me to take her on her birthday shopping trip, so I'll see you all later."

And he left the restaurant, amused smile on his face, to the sound of Minako's completely inappropriate cat calls.

All in all, life was pretty decent when you've been in love with your girlfriend for seven years.

End