Disclaimers:

I do not own the characters Haruka or Michiru or anything to do with Sailormoon Unfortunately.. :ignores the muffed noises coming from her bedroom:...

However artists alley is my own creation..It is a beautiful place I hope to go someday.

Authors notes:

Let me say that writing again brings tears to my eyes its been sooooooooooo long since the last time I felt able to write, since Love lore of the wind and sea, with an outstanding 70+ reviews! Thank-you. Someday I will write a sequel when I get over the fear that it won't be as good as the first. :shifty eyes:
I am so happy to be inspired again, I only hope this small trickle of inspiration floods out to be a sea of churning ideas and thoughts. Whoa getting poetic again .' Anyway.. The inspiration for this story is because I work at Starbucks and an actual customer comes in and buys latte's, and once before Christmas she came in only buying one and looking really upset somehow. (You'll figure it out more after you read my story 3 lol)
She's a strong handsomely beautiful woman, who I admire and blush over..It's just an infatuation of mine, nothing more as I have a girlfriend and I'm about 20 years too young lol..but..I am glad it inspired me, and I hope I can capture the essence of this beautiful feeling into words. Thanks for my online buddy, Rai. Also my wonderful Ruka (Jess) and my friend Ruka-kun in Holland(Hi!) and 'sunlit garden' from Revolutionary girl Utena, which were great inspiration. 3
Actually this story has been liberating as much as frustrating. It gets better after the first bit, just be patient. I just cant write a nice short little 3 piecer, can I :sigh: Yosh!
Updated (after weeks of nonwritting:) Okay the author has conversation hearts, still soft from V-day! Lets go!

And without further ado, I give:'Lattes for Two'

Anticipation: A prologue of sorts

My name is Kaiou Michiru, and my story begins with the confession that I have a secret.

In high school, which was primarily made up of outstanding students, (either academically, artistically, musically, or physically) I was head of my class in mostly everything. I was first chair in Orchestra, the model student in painting, and the strongest in my swim team. But despite all of this, when I was alone at night on my bed, with just my thoughts, I felt so empty. I did all of those things to constantly fill an ache that I felt so fiercely that it startled me; an ache that I suppressed for so long that I thought for sure it was just some dream, lingering under the surface; that I had imagined it. I excelled in all of these things, focused so hard, because it was a distraction from the 'nightmare'. Eventually I realised that it wasn't just a dream, or a phase I was going through. That it wasn't just that guys personality, or the way the other held his books, or the way the kid who sits behind me in history stuffs his hands in his pockets when he talked. I began to realise that it wasn't just me being particular anymore but rather a complete lack of interest, besides the occasional browsing of the opposite sex. More like the way someone eyes something over the counter at checkout.

I excelled because I felt I had nothing else to offer my parents; no husband and three children all packed together in a happy SUV in my future. I wanted so much to make them proud and happy of me. If only they had known and accepted my secret, if only anyone had known, I might not have felt so alone, if I knew they had loved me for this.

But no one knew. It was just an aching feeling in my heart day in and day out, which caused me so much confusion and inner turmoil inside that I barley made it through high school. Around my friends and peers it was nearly unbearable. That's when simply 'Kaiousan' emerged. I came off as overly confident, untouchable, intimidating and cool toward guys, threatening or stuck-up toward the girls. I had always begged my parents to let me go to an all girls school, a private school, or even home schooling. I would walk by after school ever since I could remember, going out of my way just to pass the Carrolton academy; a private all girls school. I felt so comfortable, even if behind the chain linked fence looking in. Since I was little I would watch in secret as the laughing girls would embrace each other after classes, played together as sisters, and sometimes I only now realised hand and hand, as friends? My cheeks always flushed gently as I thought of this, and it somehow exposed my inner admiration. Once or twice when I had mentioned the school, my parents would always shift their forks against their plates at dinner and glance to each other in such a way that made my stomach clench uncomfortably.

Did they sense something in such an innocent yearning?

Needless to say, I had very few friends and even more crushes by the opposite sex because of this. It always amazed me that being completely uninterested attracted the most admires. One in particular was the captain of the football team in my junior/senior year, which was so ironic in itself that I often looked back at it like a cruel joke that my life played on me in return for my growing inner predicament.
According to my mother he was, 'every high school girl's dream boyfriend'. He made it his mission everyday to get my attention somehow. I tried in so many ways to let him know I wasn't interested, and till this day he still wont give up. By now he has probably heard of my new whereabouts, and of my new 'insidious' life.
I was always afraid that one day he would really let his temper show and do something in retaliation, because no girl in school ever denied him, but I don't have to worry where I am now. This place is not his type of entertainment, nor to his jock friends. Except to idealists and artists, this place is like an undiscovered treasure. And brining anyone here from another town who wasn't like us, is an unwritten rule.

In all seriousness though, when I look back on it, I wasn't interested in anyone during that time simply because I didn't know what I was interested in. It made me feel so left out from my friends when they talked endlessly about their crushes, and I tried talking endlessly too. But when all the lies began to crush me, I created an outlet in an effort to keep my sanity. A silent friend I could always reveal my inner desires to; my sketchbook.
It was a secret sketchbook I kept tucked inside one of my bed pillows, where my mother couldn't find it. She's always was a mentor and an instructor at times, both my parents were, but I always felt like I lived in a petri dish under the eye of a looking glass. They both had their own ideals for my future, I think that's what hurt me most of all about leaving and starting this life.
However, my curiosity in girls and my own individuality only grew by the time I graduated. Finally when I wanted to go to a college in a city known not only for its expansion of self and art, but its'individuality', my parents didn't want to process this thought any further. They told me that I was taking a path in life they couldn't (wouldn't) follow anymore and would no longer ignore my choices.

So I set off with enough money in my account to start of with, my violin, my sketch book, and a eight a.m. bus heading West. As I slid in my seat I unconsciously ran my thumb along my sketch book's cover, as I watched the tree tops fly by in sparkling sunlight and motion. The sketchbook had been my refuge since I was little and however battered the cover was now, it was the foundation for my heart. These feelings were expressed in the only way I could possibly allow at that confused time; in strokes and curves of graphite.
If it had not been for sheer luck I wouldn't even have found 'Artist Alley.' This corner of town seemed so sleepy and peaceful during the day, like a Monet or some other beautiful Impressionist painting. It changes and meshes in the wind like a kaleidoscope when you squint in the distance; shifting in light and colour. At night, it's a Musicians haven. Sessions are held in the square, right by the most beautiful brass fountain I have ever seen. It's Victorian and green with age but its been the focal point of the square since the beginning and has three mermaids smiling and reaching for the warmth of the sun, the surf around their scaly hips, their bodies twisted mid jump, like dancing.
Young women walk around looking beautiful in airy scarf's and sheer dresses and the guys sing to them on their guitars. Poets write and artists dream.

The 'Café Luna' is a small eatery which serves coffee and pastries that are to die for and it's the very heart of the alley. Mostly all who go here are regulars. Some are artists, some are poets, all looking to start their life and some looking to lose their self in it.
The café is open early in the morning till dusk and the temptation to emerge from the covers for a fresh baked pastry at five a.m. never seems like a bad idea. Always the scents tease the senses, the laughter of people and the happy atmosphere, make it such charming place. I had arrived upon it by accidentally one day, midmorning when I was wandering this small corner of town looking for a cheap apartment near the very specific art college I was saving to attend. It is where everyone knows you and there is no hate here. Maybe some envy, but always genuine admiration of talent.

The alley has been here since anyone can remember. My first observation as I walked down Main Street was picture perfect in its self. It was like old Italy, with sun-dried clay dirt roads, balconies with wild flowers climbing up lattices, little vegetable gardens that the college kids kept during the summers and ginger tabbies who stretch lazily among clovers, napping in the pools of sunlight in quiet overgrown backyards.
I lived on the upper floor of a two-story building above an elderly piano teacher, Lady Anigusta, (pronounced: Onii-goos-ta), whom I've become friends with since coming here. I don't know if that is her real name as she always likes keeping a mysterious persona with people. But we don't mind, she's a kindly woman who's been living in the Alley since it began. She's fun and lively for her age and welcomes in anyone who needs her help, advice, or lessons; musically or otherwise. She always wears glittering bangles and fashionable jewellery that could as well be from the Victorian ages. They tap the old baby grand's keys when she plays, 'keeping the tempo' we jest.

Just last summer for her birthday I gave her an old fashioned sun hat adorned with real dried flowers and a lovely ivory feather which wrapped around the middle and floated up in a delicate arch that just made her look even more exotic. There was a rumour that the town was founded by people just like me, running away from their social and parental expectations. Mrs. Anigusta was equal in status of a Queen of Artist Alley back then, there's even a picture of her sitting on a chair adorned with furs and glittering sequin shams, looking nothing less of a empress or a goddess, a handsome woman in dockers at her elbow smiling. But she had ruled alone since a bitter time in the fifties, since her lover suddenly disappeared, and for all I know, leased an SUV and began to live the American dream that I had tried so hard to run from. I don't know if it is true for sure, but if the music she plays is any indication, then I believe so. I only hope love is not so cruel for me.
She won't talk about it, how hard the past was for woman like us compared to now. But sometimes the normal strains of Chopin, Mozart, and Bach, are replaced with chords and melodies so thick with frustration, anguish, loneliness and pain, that I wake up in the middle of the night with tears streaming down my face. The heavy chords pound through the walls, in my head, my very heart beat. I lay motionless as that hidden ache, so thick that I can hardly breath, burns inside my chest for release. The music floats up the stair or through the open balcony, sneaking into my awareness, just like the burning fever of those first adolescent dreams. It creeps like a snake into my mind, weaving through my defences, through hidden walls; Walls that society made people like me build to survive. The music makes me know, forces me to know, the pain. It tugs my mind into a state of warm suspension within myself. It is here, in this anguished history; those common threads, that awareness women like me have felt for centuries.
It is there, in that primordial soup of rebirth, where the most trouble had begun for me. This trouble came by what else? Dreams.

Currently I had been having dreams at night of a certain person. I cannot see their face, but I can sense their presence. It is neither soft nor strong, the scent is neither masculine nor feminine; It is the wind itself. The sunlight where we are is so warm and delightful on my skin that I close my eyes and smile as I feel their fingertips brush against my lips and cheek. I can only see wisps of sandy blond hair, and emerald sea-green eyes, glowing like cat eyes crinkled from happiness looking down at me. But the sound of someone out on the street, a meowing tomcat, or tipsy teenagers rushing down the halls, wakes me in the middle of the night. Thick with sleep, their face is indented into my awareness. I draw them almost feverishly, before the dream slips away fully. I do not know who this person is, or if they even exist. But I have a feeling, now that I am finally able to branch out on my own, that I will discover this something or someone. This is the focus of the desirable ache which has been choking me up since I can remember. It is such that now, my heart quickens and I feel dizzy with excitement.

All I can remember about the day before I left home was how I could almost taste this something in the sea breeze and how the wind seemed as excited and unsure as me. The surf lapped against my ankles one last time, its icy coolness waking me from my thoughts as I heard my parents calling me for dinner.

Where I went, this coast would be miles away, however somehow, I felt like I will finally find my true home..