AN: So…. Everyone of you who follows me on tumblr knows it's been a rollercoaster for me to get this thing out, and I'm so thankful for all you people who came out to cheer me on. This fic is supposed to be FUN – a lighthearted, romantic COMEDY, and I am neither a funny person, nor am I good at keeping things light, lol, and that's why this is so rather terrifying for me, changing genres like that, lol. Anyway, exactly because I feel comedy is a genre that doesn't come so easy to me, I wanted to try it, challenge myself, to see if I can write something more easy-going, but why it's ALSO BEEN SO HARD. WRITING EASY, LIGHTHEARTED COMEDIES IS *SO HARD* YOU GUYS!

Anyway, here we are. Please be easy on me lol.

So yeah, that's the why.

Anyyyway. As we've been discussing on tumblr a lot, Mamoru's apartment is not extremely consistently portrayed. And so, because artistic freedom and lots of canon to choose from, for this piece, I've utilized the posh, spacious version of his apartment that we get shown sometimes. You know, NOT the default, one room with twin bed and coffee table and open kitchen deal that is his default apartment mostly throughout, but that weird anomaly that popped up from time to time, in pretty much one or two episodes per season, and that suddenly contained a separate, spacious living room with leather couches facing each other and lots of bookshelves and media shelves and plants everywhere, with a separate kitchen and a hallway that opened up to more hallways to both sides, a luxury bath and a friggin EMPTY ROOM that he could fill top to bottom with mirrors, all of a sudden? Yeah, that one. We're using that one, here.

In fact, this very strange empty room Mamoru fills with mirrors in the beginning arc of Stars is the reason we're here. It was an EMPTY UNUSED ROOM in his apartment, and I thought, huh, he'd even have space for a roommate …

…

He'd even have space for a ROOMMATE...

There's Confetti In My Home Now (and I don't know what to do)

A Roommate AU

"So, you're really going to move in with a complete stranger?"

Makoto's voice sounded concerned over the tinny sound of her phone, and she swiped her IC card and nodded politely towards the bus driver as she ascended the small step into the thick, humid, August heat.

Usagi sighed, shifted a little to adjust her cotton dress – the thinnest she owned that still looked reasonably cute.

"I'm just looking at an apartment, Mako-chan," Usagi said, sighing again.

"You know you can just keep crashing at my place, right? Until things work out again?"

She nodded, even if Makoto couldn't see her, of course. But… what would that make her? She'd just turned 25, and if she was completely honest… she had never lived on her own. She'd packed up her bags and moved in with a man she loved, feeling grown up and responsible. And she packed up again and faced moving back to her parents when those feelings didn't grow the way his did, and instead ran and crashed on Makoto's couch, and sometimes Mina's, and sometimes Ami's.

She'd never paid a day of rent in her life. And it was starting to bother her. It was time to face the music.

"He's Motoki's friend," Usagi mumbled into her phone, in a voice that was at once dejected and trying to convince herself right along. "I'm sure he's not a weirdo."

Makoto made a little noise, starting to rattle off all the weird people Motoki – the boy who liked everyone – knew, but Usagi talked on before she had the chance to interject.

"I mean – they lived together for years. It's Motoki's old room!" she said. How bad could the guy be?

"Well, and how come we never met the guy, then? Huh?" Makoto replied, and Usagi rolled her eyes. "In all those years?"

The phone felt too hot against her ear, and she felt the uncomfortable slip of it, as it moved in a small pool of her own sweat against her ear. Makoto prattled on, saying something of how she should have just accepted Rei's offer to accompany her. An offer that had made her feel even more like a helpless, dependent little baby.

Usagi sighed. "Listen," she began, and then told Mako not to worry, and she'd hang up now, and she was just looking at the apartment, not moving in yet, and she promised she'd get out of there the second Weirdo had a chance to grab a knife. Promise.

Her friends were strangely overprotective of her sometimes.

They were probably right, though. She should just swallow her pride and return home to her parents. This was such a stupid idea.

And yet, she shifted the small bag containing the sleek and simple but classy bottle of red wine that Rei had begrudgingly helped her pick out under her arm, and strode a little faster towards the tall apartment building in front of her. Was it weird, to bring an omiyage to an apartment viewing? She didn't know.

And it was well located, she had to admit. Just off to the northern end of Azabu, barely ten minutes foot-walk from her parents', two bus stops from Makoto's, just minutes away from the next metro exit.

And it looked posh. Way too expensive for the little amount of rent Motoki had said the room cost per month. And the clothes the woman wore that exited the building in front of her looked like she had no problem paying her bills on time at all.

This was silly. She swallowed. She'd walk in there, politely thank the guy for the opportunity and his time, politely decline, and go back to Mako's, and search for proper single people apartments and get a real job and grow the fuck up.

Yes, that's what she would do.

She steeled her back a little, nodding to herself, as she stopped in front of the large apartment building and searched for the name on the bell panel that Motoki had given her.

Chiba. Chiba Mamoru.

She found it quickly, pressed it – the name tag still read two names. Chiba, Furuhata.

She was buzzed in immediately. Held her breath on the short elevator ride, felt the sweat pool at the back of her neck from the heat outside at the same time that her arms exploded in goosebumps at the sudden, too cold setting of the A/C that blared through the building, and yet she wiggled her hand into the fabric at her cleavage and shook it out, willing more of the chill air to cool her down.

She cursed her nerves when her hands trembled a little, as she knocked softly at the green door.

She wasn't prepared for the way her brain stopped functioning the moment the door swung open, the way her blood did this weird rushing thing and her lips opened and nothing came out, and her hands still trembled but not from nerves. She didn't know this feeling.

"You must be Tsukino Usagi," said the sexiest, baritone voice she had ever heard through lips that made her bite her own.

It took her a moment too long. She was staring. Usagi nodded quickly, stupidly.

And he was blushing, she saw, blinking, standing in the door unmoving. She bit her lip, again. Shit – she was making him nervous the way she behaved, no doubt. But…

She felt her heart beat in her throat. This was the most stunning, beautiful person she had ever seen.

It took her a moment longer until she found her voice.

"So, can I come in?" she said rather comically, her voice too high. He hadn't moved. Hadn't said anything more.

He blinked. Blushed more, opened the door wide and moved rather jerkily.

She held her breath when she walked in, looking anywhere but right at him. For all the space this apartment seemed to contain just from looking into it, the genkan was rather narrow, and he hadn't stepped away from it, instead leant against the open door.

She felt her arm brush against his shirt when she bent down to undo the clasp of her heels, felt him jerk and jump away as if burned.

"Right," he said, moving quickly into the apartment, not waiting for her, and she stumbled out of her shoes and after him. "Shall I show you the room?"

"Wait, you're moving in when?" Makoto said, appalled, hands on her hips, as Usagi halfheartedly picked up her strewn about clothes from Makoto's plushy furniture and into a big, plastic, blue IKEA bag to the electric hum of Makoto's A/C and Minako's typing on her laptop.

"The day after tomorrow," Usagi repeated, plucking a lace bra from a carved stile of Makoto's ornate dining room chairs.

"Aren't you gonna say something about this?" Makoto turned accusing eyes toward Minako, who barely shrugged, not listening, continuing to hack away on her laptop at the dining table.

Usagi pursed her lips, pulled her favorite, orange playsuit, the one she'd owned forever and yet still fit her, from beneath Minako's butt where she was sitting on it, and stuffed it in her blue IKEA bag.

She'd expected more of a reaction when she'd announced upon entering that she had found the man of her dreams and she was moving in with him.

"You find the man of your dreams every week," Minako had deadpanned. The traitor. How could she. She off all people should have underst– "Last week it was that cute guy who sold you that last Crepe, although the store was already officially closed, because he flirted with you."

"Well, this time it's different," Usagi had huffed, crossing her arms, but the girls had only rolled their eyes at her.

Instead, Makoto had scolded her, picked up the phone, yelled at it when Motoki didn't pick up, and scolded Usagi some more, while Minako had barely looked up, and Usagi had grumpily started to gather her things together while occasionally eating puff eclairs – leftovers Makoto had brought home from the café. She was gonna miss those, no kidding.

"You don't know anything about this guy!" Makoto said, arms crossed.

Makoto was worse than Usagi's own mother. Who, speaking about her, had reacted a little startled on the phone but wished her well, and asked which of the boxes she should have Papa drive over or if she wanted to pick them up herself.

Usagi shrugged, pulling her favorite mini skirt from between Makoto's sofa cushions. He was perfect. Maybe a little neat. But not everything could be perfect, right? She would move in and have hot –

"JACKPOT!" Minako yelled, banging the table so loud Usagi jumped and Makoto cursed and reminded her of neighbors.

With that, she pushed her laptop around and showed them pictures of…

Oh My…

Usagi's eyes widened, she practically attacked that laptop.

"Your boy is extremely hard to google despite boring hospital staff pages, let me tell you," Minako said with a cheeky grin. "But lookie here, turns out he made a little money as a frigging male model under a pseudonym as a freshman university student."

Makoto groaned loudly. "You're supposed to talk her out of this, Minako."

Her heart beat a little fast, when Makoto killed the engine, and they sat in silence for a second in her small, narrow transporter van.

She didn't bring a lot. An array of bulky, old, haphazardly packed and open IKEA bags, housing her clothes, knick knacks, her laptop thrown in between her bras and dresses and boxes of tampons and rose tea bags and Card Captor Sakura Chop Sticks, her old moon and bunnies comforter that had moved with her anywhere she'd lived; all the stuff she'd lived out of over the last three weeks when camping at her friends. An oversized suitcase full of the clothes she didn't wear day to day or in different weather that she hadn't touched since she'd packed up and moved out. Only two of the many, many boxes of clutter and mementos and old belongings that she'd repacked and taken from where the rest were stored in her old childhood room with her parents. This was a new start – she'd start it fairly light.

And, of course, the one thing she'd bought just this afternoon, just a few hours ago, hefting it out of the store with Makoto rather awkwardly, until Makoto had rolled her eyes, lifted it across her back and carried it alone. The most responsible and grown up thing she'd ever bought with her own money, even when it felt a little sad. A brand new futon for the bed, wrapped completely in plastic, because while the room was semi furnished with Motoki's old furniture, she was sure Motoki and Reika had done more things in this bed than sleep and she wasn't gonna think about that late at night.

"Ready?" Makoto asked, and Usagi bit her lips and nodded. She wasn't sure why she was so nervous.

She exited the car while Makoto went around to open up the bag, and Usagi's heart jumped a little when she'd pressed the bell and received a static, ruff, "Hello?" over the intercom by Mamoru's voice.

"Um, hi," Usagi said, awkwardly. "It's me… uh, I mean. Usagi. Tsukino Usagi. We're—"

She got interrupted by the buzz that unlocked the front door without another word from him.

"…here," she trailed off.

She pulled at her jeans shorts a little self-consciously, glad she at least didn't have to be worried about how Makoto was gonna act, just herself. Glad, once again, that she'd forbidden Mina to tag along, who had disqualified herself for the job last night ("Stop wearing bras at home." – "MINA-P!" – "Oh, and that way you moan when you eat ice-cream? Do it more!" – "WHAT?" – "Just trust me! Oh, and make sure to take me pictures of his—" "MINAKO!").

With a nervous feeling in her stomach, she wedged the door open, ran back to the van, and grabbed two IKEA bags that were a little too heavy and hefted them onto her shoulder to Makoto's admonishing, "Just take one at a time, we can go more often," that she simply ignored, and instead followed after her and the two much heavier boxes Makoto was carrying with ease.

She put one of the bags down, already winded in the pressing, humid, August heat when she'd only reached the elevator once, and jumped, startled, eyes wide, when it dinged open, and Mamoru stood there.

Sleeves rolled up, top buttons undone, eyes the deepest blue she'd ever seen, hair even messier than she'd seen it two days ago.

She hadn't expected him to come down and help her…

She blinked. Forgot how to form the word, "hello," and squeaked a little instead.

Damn was this weird. Was she really going to move in with this disarmingly hot but complete stranger?

But today, he didn't react to her at all. Instead, he nodded rather stiffly, mumbled a very polite "good day", and introduced himself to Makoto with a bow, before practically ripping the boxes from her hold without another word.

She frowned, Makoto blinked at her.

Makoto bowed in turn, mumbled something about how she'd get the next few boxes then, and Usagi's eyes widened a little when the elevator doors closed on just the two of them, and she was suddenly aware of how sweaty she was again, and how pretty much all her bras peaked out from her IKEA bag.

He looked purposefully ahead, not at her.

She was too aware of her own breathing, the rise and fall of her chest under her thin but very loose work out tank top and visible sports bra underneath, the way her heart beat too loud, his proximity, the silence.

It was stifling. Awful.

"So, you ready for living with a girl?" she said, awkwardly, feeling utterly stupid but also a little proud for having said anything at all to break the weird silence.

The elevator dinged, and the doors pushed open.

"I bought you a separate bin for the toilet," he said. His voice was clipped, dismissing, and he started forward, opening the door with his elbow and putting the boxes onto the shiny wooden floors without stepping up from the genkan, and turned back around in one motion and back out.

Usagi blinked. Taken aback. "Uh… ok."

She had a little trouble piling the bags on top of the boxes. The hallway was narrow, but she was a tiny person, and she didn't want to step on the shiny floors with her shoes, and didn't want to take them off. She barely managed to stack them up – they wobbled dangerously, but she exhaled a breath when they stayed where they were.

When she was back out, she could just see the last inch of Mamoru's side as the elevator doors closed on him.

He hadn't waited up.

Usagi frowned.

Then pursed her lips. "Baka," she grumbled under her breath.

She breathed in and out, calming her weird, irritated feelings, pushed the button of the elevator repeatedly and erratically.

It took a while until it was back, and opened up on Mamoru pushing out of it and brushing by her rather rudely, pushing her out of the way via blue IKEA bag that hung from his shoulder and housed, among else, some of her underwear, her big suitcase in his other hand.

"Hey," she called after him, throwing Makoto a disbelieving look, who threw her one right back, trailing out of the elevator after him slowly.

"Was he like this when you looked at the apartment?" she hissed under hear breath.

Usagi threw her a disbelieving shake of her head, wide eyed.

"Maybe he had a bad day?" Usagi whispered back, then startled when he came back out.

Makoto jerked awake, moved the bag into the apartment.

The elevator stood wide open. Usagi was already back inside, and so was Mamoru. But this time, he blocked the elevator doors with his foot. He was waiting for Makoto.

Usagi crossed her arms.

Had she said he was gorgeous? Maybe merely good-looking.

When they were back down, Usagi having huddled unnecessarily close to Makoto and farthest away from Mamoru in the elevator, Makoto basically jumped out, and grabbed the last of her bags.

Usagi threw her an appalled look. That left the mattress. The one Makoto knew she couldn't take alone.

With an annoyed sigh, she ripped at its side, bouncing off of it rather comically when she managed to wedge it free from its vehicle confines with a grunt.

She heard another sigh, not from her this time, when he grabbed it by the side and helped her lift it up.

It was a little hard to carry up. He was so much taller than her, and strode so much faster. She clawed her hands into the plastic, so it wouldn't slip from her hands.

When they were back in the building, the lights on the top of the elevator already signaled an upwards ride.

Damn you, Makoto.

He stood the mattress upright, held onto it with one hand and one hip while it wobbled dangerously on her side, and pushed the button for the elevator. Repeatedly. Almost as annoyed as she had done.

"So," she tried again. "Do you have plans tonight?"

"Yes."

Clipped, again. He didn't even look at her, and definitely didn't elaborate.

"Oh," she said, lamely. "How about tomorrow?"

"I don't know, yet."

The elevator arrived. Opened with a ding. He pulled the mattress inside and her alongside with a yank.

She blinked. Swallowed. "Well, I thought, maybe we could get pizza delivered, and get to kn—"

"I'm not sure I'll have the time."

Usagi blinked again. "Right."

The elevator opened again, he wrenched the mattress out of it rather forcefully. Usagi basically only held on to it anymore.

She stumbled a bit, when he lifted the side of it, and hers collapsed under her, and she moved jerkily to catch it, barely. He didn't really wait for her to get her bearings.

When they got to the door, he lifted the futon up and from her hands, and leaned it against the side of the door. Then, he got inside, slipped off his shoes, and did what Makoto did – carry the bags from the hallway into her room.

"Right," Usagi mumbled again, pulled the mattress inside by the plastic, jerkily and clumsily, and closed the door.

Then she slipped off her shoes as well, grabbed a bag. Mamoru already returned for the second, Makoto right behind.

"Well, maybe you want to come with us t—" Usagi tried again, trying her utmost to sound happy and like nothing was the matter.

"That's really not necessary," he said, interrupting her, while lifting another bag.

She frowned.

"The small talk," he elaborated. "I prefer to work in silence."

Then he lifted a second bag, and turned around without waiting for a reply.

Usagi was left gaping. Makoto narrowed her eyes.

"Well, now we know why Motoki never bothered to introduce him." Makoto didn't even whisper this time.

Had she said he was good-looking? He was merely passable. And a giant fucking jerk.

Who was her new roommate.

She yanked a bag off the bag tower. Cursed loudly when it toppled over, and the hardwood floors were covered in panties, pens, purses and peko-chan paraphernalia.

She sighed, got up on her hands and knees, and when she looked back up, Mamoru was back there, and looked at her rather startled as she looked up from her perch on all fours in between her delicates.

This time, he was blushing again. "Right, I'll leave you to it, then," he said, and disappeared into the room down the hall that she realized she hadn't seen when she viewed the apartment, and probably was his.

Her eyes narrowed some more, and she grumpily threw her items back into the nearest IKEA bag, and Makoto knelt down with a sign and helped her.

"Just say the word, and we're moving this all back down into the van," she said.

She sighed, threw one of her pens back into the bag – her favorite, her lucky pen, the pink one with the jeweled top she'd gotten when she kicked one of Motoki's game machines that one time.

"No," Usagi sighed. Looked into the apartment. The living room, spacious and lush, filled with exotic plants and big leather couches, was doused in golden light that filtered through the transparent curtains by the balcony. The sun was setting behind Tokyo Tower. The view was stunning.

Besides, the rent was laughable. The room was big, and she only had to live with the guy after all.

She shook her head, threw the last of her errant belongings in the bag and pushed it towards Makoto.

"Help me unpack?" she asked.

Makoto pursed her lips, but nodded. And hefted not two, but three IKEA bags on her person, dropped them into her room, and then carried the stupid futon in all by herself. It looked effortless.

Usagi had to giggle.

It didn't take them long, of course. Not with Makoto there. In less then an hour her clothes were folded so neatly Usagi knew she would be afraid to ever touch that dresser again, Makoto had dressed the bed and thrown her comforter on it so beautifully she was sure a bed had never looked as inviting as this one, string lights framed her window and the iron headboard of her new bed, and Usagi was putting up her few current Manga issues and artbooks into the shelf and secured the meager collection of printed books with a little moon book end. It filled up barely half a row. The rest of the shelf she filled with her little pink plush rabbit she'd had since she was little, picture frames of the girls, one row just for her camera equipment, and her little framed cork board that held most of her jewelry.

She'd also filled up one of the IKEA bags with her toiletries and things she'd dump in the bathroom whenever she had the guts to face the outside of this room again.

"Oh, and I almost forgot!" Makoto said, and reached into her backpack that was leaning against the door. Out came a small and beautiful plant with a pink bow on it.

Usagi blinked.

"Your housewarming gift!" Makoto said, beaming.

Usagi blinked again. This plant would be dead by the end of the week.

Makoto giggled, shook her head. "Don't worry," she pinched a leaf. "See? It's plastic. You can't kill it. But a new living arrangement needs a plant."

Usagi sighed in relief, and Makoto rolled her eyes and put it into the shelf, right next to a framed photo of all of them together. Minako was posing dramatically, Ami had her nose stuck in a book, Usagi was mid-fall. It was perfect.

"There," Makoto said. "Welcome home!"

Usagi had to smile, and then, completely out of nowhere, came a sob.

She was in Makoto's arms in barely a second.

"Shhh," Makoto hushed. "I'm here."

She didn't know why the sobs turned so ugly, why she clawed herself into Mako's shirt like so. Maybe it was the breakup finally catching up to her. Maybe it was Shingo and the shiny successful life she just didn't manage to lead, too. Maybe it was the jerk down the hall.

"Do you want us to pack it all back up?" Makoto whispered into her hair. "Cause we can do that."

She laughed through her tears. Short and mirthless, and it did the job to calm her down.

She leaned back, rubbed her face.

"No," she said, smiling meekly. "I'm fine. Just nerves."

Makoto frowned a little but nodded. It was one of the things she appreciated most. Makoto never pushed when it was important. Even if she disagreed, Makoto always respected her decisions.

She froze again, when she looked up, and saw Mamoru standing in the door. He wore a new, clean shirt, a set of keys in his hand, his face completely ashen and shocked at the way her face was blotched in tears.

They looked at each other for a second, both frozen, until Usagi wiped at her face again, and Makoto spoke.

"Did you want something?"

He jerked into motion, his free hand flew to the back of his neck, his eyes to the floor and then back to hers.

They didn't leave hers this time, concerned and wide, almost ashamed, when he haltingly moved into the room, and held out his hand.

He didn't ignore her now, that was certain, and Usagi wasn't sure how it made her feel.

Usagi didn't reach out, and so, with clammy hands, he grabbed her hand with his, uncurled it, and placed a set of keys inside.

She hated the way her fingers tingled where he'd touched them.

He retracted his hands immediately. His hand flew back to the back of his neck, but his concerned, wide eyes didn't leave hers.

"Welcome," he said, swallowed. "I'm sorry if I—"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry that I—" he broke off again. "Made you feel… unwelcome."

Usagi blinked.

Maybe he was a little good-looking.

"It's not easy for me—" He broke off again. Shook his head, and looked around the room.

"It looks prettier with your things than Motoki's," he said.

Now he was making small talk?

Usagi stared. So did Makoto.

Mamoru cleared his throat, walked two steps backwards toward the door – her door, now.

"Right," he said, and turned to leave.

Usagi and Makoto exchanged a look.

Makoto was the first to speak. "About that pizza… We were gonna head out later, if you—"

He shook his head, and his eyes, again, landed on Usagi's, not Makoto's. Apologetic, this time.

"I'm sorry, I really do have plans."

She nodded.

"Maybe tomorrow."

She smiled.

"Maybe tomorrow," she repeated.

He turned to leave.

"So, where are you going?" Makoto, again, and Usagi jabbed her in the ribs. That was none of their business.

He froze in the doorway. Turned around almost comically slow.

This time, he didn't look at Usagi at all. Only at Makoto, when he spoke.

"I'm meeting my fiancé for dinner."

Usagi's eyes nearly bugged right out of her head.

So, my forever thanks, of course, always, to my beta, Uglygreenjacket. But as I said, I kinda gotta thank the whole tumblr community. Thank you for building me back up when I was in the Deep Slump Of Self-Pity and felt like no one really needs my writing either way. And thank you to Tina Century, for talking tropey expectations with me, and all those wonderful people in my corner. Thanks for having my back, guys. That's why you get to read this fic now!

Otherwise…there you go, guys! Please, please, please let me know how I'm doing with this change of fic type, and next up: Mamoru POV!