"Antimatter." Usagi said, . She looked up from the book she was reading, at the stars. It was a chilly though pleasant night in Tokyo. Pleasant enough to spend romatically. So Usagi attempted just that, with Mamoru, even though she was engrossed in a book that every one else would find as strange reading material for one with the interests of Usagi Tsukino. 'A Brief History of Time,' by Dr. Stephen Hawking.

"What?" Mamoru looked down at Usagi in front of him, from his vintage point, he could see visibly the text she was reading, though he asked anyway.

"Antimatter. Mamo-chan. Antimatter."

Mamoru grinned. "I know-I know. When did you become interested in physics?"

Usagi sat the book face down upon her stomach and sighed. "Since yesterday."

"Yesterday?"

"Yesterday."

"How?"

Usagi arched her back a little and tilted her head up to look at Mamoru's eyes. Satisfied that he was clearly amused, and not just shocked, she rest her back once more and continued reading the book.

"I saw this book at the book store and I couldn't help but buy it."

"You sound like Ami."

"I sound like Ami-Chan?" Usagi chuckled a bit at first, and then started laughing hysterically, squirming under Mamoru's arms.

Mamoru siged at the typical Usagi response. "Well... You did."

Usagi squirmed a little more and then stopped, catching her breath. She looked back up at Mamoru. "I do?"

"Well. You, were, talking about antimatter. And you, just said that you bought a book. Not a manga, but a book, on Physics."

Usagi looked down at the book laying open accross her stomach. "I did."

"So. Why did you buy the book?"

"Because." Usagi looked back up at the stars.

"Because why?" Mamoru said. He looked up at the stars as well.

"I wanted to know what it's like to be Ami-chan for a day."

"Huh?"

"I wanted to know what it's like to be a genius."

"Usako. You can't just be a genius by reading books by geniuses."

"I can't?"

"No. Genius like Ami's is something you're born with. Some people are born creative. Some people are born to dance. Some people can sing without a lesson in their life. Some people are born geniuses. Ami is a born genius. A very creative person can't necessarily learn to sing perfectly by reading a book by a natural born singer."

"What about me?"

"You're." Mamoru looked into Usagi's eyes. "Beautiful."

Usagi crossed her arms over the book and looked forward. "Hmmph."

Mamoru grinned. "What?"

"Am I just beautiful? Is that all?"

"No. You're lots of things."

"Name one."

"Well you're..."

"You're taking too long."

"Sorry. But. Usako. Don't worry about it." He placed his hands on her shoulders. "Why were you talking about Antimatter anyway?" He queried as he gently started massaging her shoulders.

Usagi, taking pause as any tension that could possibly have been in her shoulders started melting away, paused as she contemplated her answer. "Antimatter? Well. I was reading Hawking-san's descripton of Antimatter and I couldn't help but think about the implic, implica."

Mamoru stopped massaging Usagi's shoulders and leaned back. "Implications. About what?" Usagi leaned back against his stomach, her head against his chest, and stared at the stars above in a way that any intellectual would interpret as someone who's mind had just switched into overdrive.

"Well. He said that there could be entire galaxy's made up of Antimatter. Containing anti-solar systems, which contain anti-planets, which contain anti-people. But we can never see them or talk with them because if we touched, we'd explode. And I thought, how sad, we could all be friends, but we can't because..."

"Fate." Mamoru completed her sentence as he looked down at the top of Usagi's head.

Usagi nodded.

The couple continued staring up at the twinkling stars up ahead. Neither daring to contemplate just how big the expanse of universe was, but imagining it all the same. Then Usagi started giggling again. After a few seconds Mamoru started grinning, Usagi's laughs were infectious. "Now what?"

"Oh," Usagi stopped laughing, though spoke with a tinge of glee in her voice, "I was just thinking, what if, out there somewhere, there's an Anti-Usagi and Anti-Mamo-chan sitting on some Anti-earth staring up at their stars and thinking about non-anti-people."

"Um..." Mamoru paused for a bit, trying to wrap his mind around the tongue twister that Usagi had just enthusiastically introduced into the conversation. "I think. Well. I think they'd see us as the Anti-people."

"So. There's an Anti-Usagi out there somewhere thinking that it's sad that she could never be friends with us?"

There was a pause. The pause got longer, and longer, and longer. Usagi tilted her head up to look at Mamoru, who was still staring up at the stars. He finally spoke, "Usagi... That is the most intelligent, philosophical, and caring question I have ever heard."

"What?"

Mamoru started to sit up, causing Usagi to do the same all the while putting a little weight on Mamoru in protest. Usagi twisted her upper body to the right and looked at Mamoru quizzically. He was smiling, in that warm smile that he reserved only for her. He put his right hand under her chin and tilted her head up to look him in the eye. "Ami may be a born Genius. But you're the most caring, thoughtfull, and beautiful person in the world. And you're my Usako."

They kissed.

Somehwere else in the universe. A part of the universe with anti-people. A single anti-person looked up at the anti-stars, and smiled.

The end.

OoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooO

Authors note: Wow. That sure was an amusing story wasn't it. I wonder what it means? I don't think there's really a clear-cut "moral of the story" going on, so I am leaving the interpretation up to you. The kernel of this story started out as an experiment in dialogue along with me finishing the book "A Brief History of Time" by Dr. Stephen Hawking (a book I highly recommend by the way). TTFN!

Thanks go once again to Lord Malachite (Fanfiction dot net page available via my favorite authors list), for proofreading this story.