Moon Taboo

By Roxius

'Damn it, mom, how am I supposed to concentrate on my work when you keep getting in my head...?'

18-year-old Chibiusa (she still went under that nickname despite no longer being 'chibi'; it was what everyone was accustomed to) held her notebook open in front of her, staring at the notes she'd jotted down. Or rather, she was staring at what SHOULD have been the notes from class, because most of the white space was instead filled with doodles and sketches of her mother Usagi's face. Chibiusa's cheeks flushed, a brighter pink than her own colorful hair, and she slammed the notebook shut, shoving it back into her bag. She couldn't believe how messed-up her brain had gotten; how could things have gotten this bad? She'd always respected and admired her mother, ever since she was a child, for how beautiful she was, how kind she was, how overall amazing she was...but now these feelings of admiration were starting to cross the point of no return. Chibiusa felt like she could fly up into space and turn into a brand new star, her face was growing so hot already.

Chibiusa hurried along. She had finished college classes for the day, and unlike most of her friends, she chose to commute instead of dorming on campus. She wasn't exactly as rich as they all were either, so commuting was inevitably the kinder option on her wallet and bank account, as well as so that she could keep a close eye on that troublesome mother of hers. The sky was already painted with the colors of evening, Chibiusa noticed. She wondered what Usagi had cooked for dinner. Her mother was always preparing something for them to eat together, since she usually got off work before her classes ended. They spent so much time in each other's company...Chibiusa started to blush again.

'If I was going to fall in love with another woman, why couldn't it be someone who didn't give birth to me?' she thought, striking her forehead rather hard out of frustration, but the pain instantly made her regret it. A few passerby tossed her a couple of concerned looks, but no one approached her. All the better, Chibiusa didn't want to make a further scene by herself, and she quickly scuttled off for home. She'd finish bashing her stupid love-struck brain in once she was safe in the privacy of her own bedroom.

Chibiusa ran up the stairwell to reach the second floor of the apartment complex. As she exited the stairwell, she spot the sight of someone blonde in the corner of her eye. And that blonde was currently melding into someone brunette. Chibiusa froze. Even her blood seemed to suddenly chill over in the wake of the scene before her.

She knew even before the woman pulled her face away that it was her mother; her hairdo was a dead give-away. Still the same as when she'd been a teenager, with pigtails long enough to touch her knees. The other woman was a little less easy to pinpoint, because her back was slightly turned and her long hair partially concealed her face.

Chibiusa's breath caught in her throat, it felt like her lungs, no, her entire body was starting to burn up.

The other woman finally turned, and she began to strode down the hallway in Chibiusa's direction. It was Rei Hino.

'What...?'

Rei quickly rushed past Chibiusa, not even offering a quick hello or the slightest apology. Chibiusa watched her leave for a moment before turning back to catch her mother's reaction. However, Usagi had already run back into the apartment, slamming the door shut behind her. Chibiusa could literally hear her heart pounding inside her head; why did she feel so goddamn mad about all of this? She ran for the door, and found it left unlocked. Her mother must have noticed her, after all. This was going to be a very awkward meeting between them, if Chibiusa had anything to say about it. Still burning hot inside, she opened the door and stepped inside.

"Welcome home!"

Chibiusa was greeted, quite loudly she noticed, by her mother at the front of the door before she could even remove her shoes. Usagi embraced her; it was just a hug between a mother and daughter, but Chibiusa's conflicted little heart still did a flip over it.

"How'd your day with class go today, Chibi?" Usagi asked, just as loudly as her welcome call. "You must be so hungry after studying so hard! I haven't started dinner yet, but I'll get to it right away! Just give me an hour!"

She seemed suspiciously enthused, as if she'd pumped her veins full of caffeine all day,and she was still running on high. Chibiusa knew exactly what was going on; her mother wasn't that difficult to read, not as hard as she thought she was. Usagi was desperately trying her best to keep any and all attention away from what had just occurred between her and Rei, hoping that she could prevent Chibiusa from asking her about it simply by being too energetic to keep up with. It was an old tactic, fast-talking and anxious displays of over-activity to get people to forget the embarrassing or humiliating thing she'd just done. In this case, being caught in what was likely a kiss with one of her best friends, her possible lover.

Chibiusa silently fumed. She wasn't going to let Usagi get away with it. Her mother thought she could brush this all under the rug, or that she could sate her daughter's justifiable anger with treats, as if Chibiusa were still the same little girl she'd always known. But Chibiusa was no longer a child, and she was far, far smarter than she'd once been, and she was not going to eat dinner and go to bed without proper answers. She was trembling as she walked to her room to put away her bag. She could not stop imagining how her mother and that Rei woman were kissing each other. Aside from learning the extant of the two women's relationship, there were quite a few things Chibiusa wished to tell her mother too.

Chibiusa hurried into her room. She kept her room sparse and clean, so there were no posters of popular J-pop bands, no make-up kits left lying strewn over her desk or on the floor, and all of her underwear was neatly folded inside of her clothing cabinet. She rarely spent much time in her bedroom, because she was usually at school or out with friends. She also did it on purpose to get her mother's attention. She expected Usagi to see the strange lack of personality in her room and maybe become concerned something was wrong. But her mother never said a word about it.

The pink-haired teen flopped onto her bed. She sighed. She couldn't stop thinking of her mother kissing Rei, but instead of Rei, she was imagining herself in the brunette's place. Chibiusa groaned, burying her face into her forearm. She was trapped in a spot with no 'good ending' in sight for her.

Chibiusa had always loved Usagi, she knew that. The only thing that really changed was the lenses through which she saw her love; when she was young, she looked up to her mother and wanted to protect her, but then that love became something like how a husband and wife might feel for each other, and Chibiusa had been stuck that way ever since. She had held off ever saying anything, because why would she confess to something like that? That she was attracted and desired to be with her own mother romantically and even sexually?

Tonight might just be the night though. She may have been afraid to tell her mother the truth, why wouldn't she be, but she wasn't going to just sit back and let some other woman woo Usagi's willing heart. It might have sounded a little selfish, but nothing was fair in either love or war, and this was about to turn into a war for both of them. Chibiusa kept herself busy fiddling around with her hair and her phone until Usagi called her for dinner.

"Sorry that it took so long, Chibi! I was busy preparing all of your favorites! I even have some flan pudding for dessert! Doesn't it all look great?"

Chibiusa shrugged as she overlooked the entire spread; it did look delicious, but she wasn't exactly interested in eating as she was in talking. "It does look good. Thank you, mom." Still, the combined aroma of soba noodles, rice cakes, sweet tofu and buttered carrots was quite tempting, so she pulled out a seat for herself.

Usagi sat down from across of her, and Chibiusa could tell she was purposely putting as much space between them as possible. "So how was your day?"

Chibiusa took a bite of one of the carrots; she had grown to enjoy them over the years. She nibbled on the carrot slowly, methodically, her eyes never leaving Usagi's, just so she could make the older woman grow even more uncomfortable as the silence progressed. "Why don't you tell me about your day first?" she eventually replied. She wanted to make Usagi writhe a little for what she'd done.

Usagi shuffled a little in her seat, a faint hint of scarlet starting to fizzle on her pale cheeks. "I...I had work today, it went over well. I don't have any complaints about that. I'm getting on my boss's good side lately; if I keep working at buttering her up, I could get a promotion! That'd be great, wouldn't it?"

'Would you try to sleep with her to get that promotion...?' Chibiusa thought wryly, but she kept that thought from becoming venom on her tongue. Still, she didn't hold back from giving her mother a nasty glare.

"After work ended, I went out to the...I...um, Chibiusa?"

"What?"

"Why are you looking at me that way? What's wrong? I'm feeling a bit of animosity from you. Did I do something wrong?"

Chibiusa started to fume a little. Her mother really was a 'meatball head'; she could be such a dummy sometimes. Usagi had changed a lot from her high school days, but at the same time, she was still a bit like that naive young woman Chibiusa first met as her future mother. However, they were now both older, and Chibiusa was even older than her mother had been back then, and they both should have known better. Chibiusa wanted to grab those perfect, smooth cheeks, pull her in so she could stare deep into those wonderful, sparkling eyes, and wrap her lips around that perfect, kissable mouth. That would have surely shown her mother just what exactly was wrong with her. Chibiusa sighed. If only it could have been so easy, and if only it didn't have to be so taboo.

Don't jump the gun, she told herself, just stay calm and work your way up to it. Show her you mean business. Worm your way through her walls, and make her feel absolute regret for 'cheating' on you with Rei like she did. Chibiusa lowered her eyes and resumed eating as she spoke.

"Do you really want to know why I am so upset? It's nothing you would probably care about. Don't worry about it, mom, you're probably just being paranoid, you know. It's fine."

Usagi put down her chopsticks. "You're not going to get very far with me if you keep acting like nothing's wrong, Chibi. You should know that you can trust me!"

Chibiusa flinched.

"You want me to be able to trust you that you'd listen to what I have to say?" the pinkette snarled.

"What? Chibi, what are you-"

"Don't try and pretend that it didn't happen! What do you have to hide, anyway?"

Usagi nearly jumped. "What are you going on about...?"

Chibiusa slammed her hands onto the table. "I'm talking about what I saw out there! About when you kissed Rei! Aren't you even going to try and explain it?"

Usagi realized she must have looked quite foolish at that moment, as a beet-red blush started to creep its way along her face, but she couldn't help it when her own daughter was calling out her faults like this. It was true, she had tried to pass off her kiss with Rei as some sort of imaginary illusion, acting like it had never happened and hoping against hope that her daughter would simply play along without question. However, while she did expect that Chibiusa would eventually have questions for her, she had not expected the younger woman to be so agitated.

She was actually somewhat terrified by Chibiusa's reaction, because she had never seen her daughter act this way before, as far back as she could remember.

"I...I..." Usagi started to fumble with her napkin.

Chibiusa shook her head wildly, shouting, "How long have you two been together? Why didn't you tell me anything about it, mom?"

"I was going to tell you!"

"When did it start?"

"Chibi, what is going on with you? You're throwing a fit, like some kind of child!"

Chibiusa was starting to tremble violently, like a miniature earthquake was erupting from within her body, and her eyes filled with tears. "You should have told me...! I thought I could trust you! You're my mom, and I'm your daughter!" Even as she said this, it made the young woman's heart ache even more.

"Chibi, please calm down. It was just one kiss today! I'm serious! Rei, she...she asked me to be with her..." Usagi explained.

Chibiusa felt something akin to a cold chill shoot down her spine. "She did...?"

"I told her that I wasn't sure. She kissed me, to try and convince me, and then she left. That's all that happened, Chibi. Honest."

"You still let her kiss you! Do you really want to be with her, mom?"

"I'm not sure..."

"What about me, mom?" Chibiusa finally let loose what she had been holding in this entire argument, no, what she had been holding in for several years.

Usagi could only blink in confusion. "...Huh?"

"I'm saying, I wish you could have ever noticed me," Chibiusa hung her head like a criminal confessing to manslaughter, "I wish you could have ever noticed...how obvious I tried to make it that I had a problem...and that it had to do with you, mother..."

"Chibi, no," Usagi started to rise from her seat, "You can't...no, no, this is wrong, I'm sure I'm just misunderstanding you right now! You're just teasing me or something, aren't you?"

"I'm not teasing! Mom, I've always admired you and loved you...but I've started to love you as more than just my parent! I love you as another woman! Do you understand THAT? I don't want you to be with Rei, because I want you to be with me!" Chibiusa shouted.

Usagi shook her head. She started to move away from the table altogether. "Chibi, you're...you must just be confused...or tired...you need to go and get some rest...please..."

"Mom!"

"Stop saying things like this, Chibi! How am I supposed to feel, what am I supposed to think about this? Are you seriously confessing to me right now? Tell me what's going on!"

"Mom, please! Just listen to me!"

Usagi tried to hurry away, but Chibiusa was faster, more fit, than this woman who had long since ended her role as a Sailor Scout. Chibiusa grabbed her mother by the wrist, but Usagi spun and tried to rip her arm right out, yet Chibiusa held on strong. Usagi started to shout, but Chibiusa silenced her swiftly with a kiss on the mouth. She pushed Usagi up against the wall as she continued to hold the kiss. '

Usagi should have fought back. She should have forced Chibiusa off, slapped her for trying something so out of line, and reprimand her like a real mother for once. But no, that would have been far too simple, far too easy. No, she could not even bring herself to break the kiss, because she found herself actually beginning to enjoy it. Chibiusa's lips were as soft as pillows, as plump and sweet as peaches, and she tasted like...like...tantalizing bliss.

Usagi started to weep into the kiss, but Chibiusa simply embraced her. She didn't like it when her mother cried, and many people had made her mother cry before. Chibiusa kissed her even deeper. Saliva dribbled down Usagi's chin. When a lack of air finally became an issue, the two women separated, and they looked longingly into each other's eyes, neither sure what to truly make of these burgeoning feelings.

"Please...Chibi..."

"Mom, I love you...so much..."

"We shouldn't do this, Chibi."

"No...you...you liked it, didn't you..."

"Oh God, please, Chibi,"

"You liked it, didn't you?"

Usagi sobbed.

"Please, mom, I want you to be mine. I want you to be mine and mine alone."

"Chibi..."

"I don't even know for sure what I think about any of this!" Usagi shouted, and she really meant it; her mind couldn't keep up with any of this. She had been so sure about what she felt for Rei only a few hours ago, but now her own daughter had kissed her, and instead of being instantly disgusted, Usagi had become intrigued. She was terrified about what her own heart was trying to tell her. Chibi kissed her on the bottom lip.

"I'll make you understand how you really feel about me. But...you have to do something for me first, mother."

"W-What? Chibi, I don't-"

"Tell her tonight. Call her."

Usagi stared into her daughter's eyes, hoping that she did not truly mean it, but there was no hint of joke in the younger woman's cold, unblinking stare. What Chibiusa had said was not a request or a suggestion. It was a demand being issued, and she was expected to fulfill said demand without argument.

Rei was nearly ready for bed when her cellphone started to vibrate. A smile painted itself over her lips when she saw that the call was coming from Usagi. She promptly answered it.

"Hello? Usagi, I'm so glad you called."

"Hello, Rei." Usagi's voice was a little uneven, she sounded nervous, but Rei did not question it.

"How are you doing? Interesting hour for you to be calling," Rei smirked.

Usagi chuckled. "Y-Yes, it is, isn't it? I'm sorry."

"No, it's alright. I'm actually quite happy to hear from you right now. Is there something specific you wished to talk to me about?"

"Yes...yes, there is..."

"Then what is it? Tell me everything!" Rei stretched; she felt like she'd caught this cute little fishy hook, line and sinker.

Usagi paused to take a breath. "...I'm sorry, Rei, but I'm going to have to turn down your offer. I cannot be with you."

"What?" Rei jumped; this wasn't the way things were supposed to go.

"I'm very sorry, Rei. Thank you for, um, being interested in me, but I am going to have to say that I am already taken."

Rei sat down on her bed before she collapsed right there. She tried to keep the phone held steady in her hand. "But...but Usagi...why? I thought...when we kissed that you would..."

"I'm sorry, Rei. Please, don't try to kiss me again." And Usagi hung up, just like that. Rei was left staring at her phone, completely aghast.

Usagi, meanwhile, was on the verge of tears for what she had done. Rei had been one of her closest and greatest friends, someone who had been on her side for years, ever since they were teenagers. The mother felt her daughter's arms slink around her waist from behind. Chibiusa nipped the nape of her mother's neck, and Usagi shuddered. She didn't know what she was doing anymore, it was like her mind was sinking into a deep haze. Chibiusa was her beloved daughter, the light of her life, but she had never considered something like a romantic relationship before...or had she? Even her memories were no longer clear. Usagi could hear Chibiusa whispering into her ear.

"Don't worry, mother; I'm sure I will be more than enough for you."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Poster's Notes: So…Roxius is pretty damn amazing, isn't he? :3

This piece here was written by him as a commission for HinoHomura, who has been commissioning a lot of awesome "Sailor Moon" UsagixMinako stories, which you should like, totally check out! :3

As for this, well, Homura-kun, I can't thank you enough for commissioning this for me, and you Rox-kun, for being crazy enough to write this. XD I still don't know why he doesn't want to post this on his profile, but hey, I'm more than happy to oblige him. :3

So, thank you guys so much, and you beautiful people, do let Rox-kun what ya'll think of this, yesh?

Have a nice day~

Semper-Fi! Carry on!