Subtext

Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own Sailor Moon.

This is the first chapter. It's a little sketchy. It gets better as it goes, so if you can tolerate it at all, read a few more chapters and see if you get into it.

The first time I met Kaioh Michiru, I was mean to her.

Destiny. I hated the idea of destiny. It will probably always be a burden, the knowledge that everything in my life is a part of my fate, pre-assigned. It's hard to think about all that fate stuff in a way where I can still believe that I have free will. I like to try… but sometimes it's easier just to ignore it now that I've accepted that I can't escape it.

But Michiru. The reason I can accept it. That first time I met her, when Elza Grey introduced us… Even besides the fact that I was running from my fate, I didn't care too much about yet another girl having a silly crush on me. Admittedly it was a little unusual for a girl who knew I was also a girl to like me anyway, like she obviously did. I was a little interested in her because of that. But I wasn't about to let her lure me into fulfilling my destiny with suggestions of hot, sweet love and the thought of a beautiful, supple soldier girl to share my doom. Well… Maybe I wasn't all that unwilling. And maybe there were only very, very subtle suggestions of that kind of thing that first time… but I knew what was up. And I didn't give in that time.

Even then, I felt a little bad, maybe very bad, for being so mean to her, and for humiliating her in front of someone else. She looked so miserable. I realise, now that I know her, that how sad she looked, her pretty face so hopeful and then so hurt, all that sadness was just because of me and how I treated her – it had nothing to do with shame. At the time, maybe I felt worst for embarrassing her in front of Elza Grey, but now I can see that she is too confident to have been ashamed. All that sadness was just because I rejected her, not because of pride or anything else. It makes it worse to think of it that way, to think about how her downcast face was not to hide shame, but just because she couldn't hold up her pretty head out of sadness at my rejection. What kind of person makes the most beautiful girl they've ever seen miserable the first time they meet? A selfish one I guess. But I posed for her later. I've posed for her a lot of times. Every time, I think of that first time she asked.

I could never have accepted that I had to endure the burden of my fate without her. With her, it's not even a burden anymore. And even though the fate thing is troublesome, there are good parts to it. Sometimes it's wonderful to know that our love is fated. If I think about it, it's perfect. It's so secure, so fitting. She and I are destined to be together. Lovers like to imagine that words like "destiny" and "fate" apply to them, but we, Michiru and I, can use them truly.

I couldn't see the romance of it quite as well at first. The idea of romance meant very little to me when all I wanted was to be the wind – to get away from everything. Romance involves staying places, and not running. It doesn't work so well to move fast in a relationship. It's a responsibility. It requires sacrifice, and selflessness. Those were things I didn't care about at all until I met Michiru… until I met her the third time, I should say. When I thought about love before, it was different from when I think about it now that I know her. Before when I pictured a relationship, I'd be in my uniform, and a pretty girl would follow me around a lot and go to all the competitions I was in and want me to talk to her all the time. And she'd be jealous a lot and would make me feel bad and I'd have to spend money on her. She'd brag about me to all her friends and she'd be really impressed by everything I did. Just a vague series of half-formed ideas and images, really, with a different girl every time I thought about it. I would flirt with girls a lot, I still do, but it never went anywhere because if they tried to formalize anything I would be overwhelmed with thoughts of a girl, the same girl all the time, hanging on my arm possessively and constantly, and crying every time I was even a little bit mean or if I didn't want to go to a nice restaurant or do whatever she wanted… like Usagi is with Mamoru. But I don't mean that to insult Usagi, little Odango. It's just not the sort of situation I ever wanted to find myself in. There's also the fact that I very rarely talked to a girl enough times for her to realise I was a girl too. There were very few girls who would have wanted me after that. But even the ones that would have, I imagined it would be the same way as if I were a boy – no apparent benefits, and a lot of crying and spending time and money.

Right away I could tell it wouldn't be like that with Michiru. She has composure. She is elegant and graceful and would never be like other girls. The benefits were more obvious too, even when I had just looked at her and I didn't know what she was like. She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, by far, and excluding no one. Every single girl is less pretty than my Michiru. I have known a lot of beautiful girls. All of the Sailor Senshi, for example, are beautiful. But even though I see them a lot, and I have seen them all in various states of undress, I am completely convinced that Michiru is infinitely more beautiful. But this is not the only way in which she beats other girls into the ground. Even within the bonds of my fate, I am free with her. I don't have to play the part of the handsome and debonair lover. I can just lie around and sleep, or I can talk about anything, or I can wander around in a dress. It is all met with the same level of appreciation and interest, subtle but unquestionable. She never wants anything that I am unwilling to offer. She gets jealous, and sometimes she gets angry, but it's never uncalled for. I always deserve it. I can always count on her being perfect. It might seem like that would make me bitter, since I'm always the one that's wrong… but it doesn't. It is wonderful to have someone who I can rely on, besides myself. I never had that before I met her.

But it took a little while before I came around to seeing how perfect life with her would be, longer than it might seem like it should have taken.