Part Seventeen : The Senshi Begin to Realize; Who are the Two Strangers?
“Where should we go?” Mamoru asked as he wrapped his arm around Usagi’s waist. Usagi giggled at the rare occasion of Mamoru actually making intimate contact with her. “It doesn’t matter,” Usagi muttered as she tried to move closer to her boyfriend. Mamoru smiled at Usagi as they continued to search for a place where they could spend some time together. They settled for a small Italian restaurant across the street from where they had first been. Although the restaurant was small, there were a lot of people inside, and they had to sit in the back of the restaurant in order to get some privacy. The waiter got their drink order, and when he left, Mamoru and Usagi were left alone at last. Mamoru reached for his glass of water, but he wasn’t careful, so he knocked it on the floor. Since the carpet was thick, the glass did not break, but one of the waiters walked over and picked it up for Mamoru. Soon after the accident, the waiter brought the couple their appetizer, and they both ate and talked. Even though Usagi was never graceful at the table, this was even a little strange because she dropped her fork as she was bringing it up to her mouth, and it almost landed on the floor, but Mamoru caught it in time. “Something’s not right,” Mamoru pointed out after that happened. Usagi, who was too hungry to notice, didn’t pay attention, and she continued to eat. When Usagi got a stain of spaghetti sauce on her blouse, she looked at Mamoru, and she knew that he was right. Mamoru tried to brush the whole thing off, and he went for another go at his water. This time, Mamoru was more careful, and he managed to take a sip without dropping it. As he put his cup down, he looked around, and he noticed a couple at the far entrance of the restaurant, and they were about to be seated. “Do you know him?” Mamoru asked Usagi as he tilted his head in the couple’s direction. Usagi narrowed her eyes as if she was trying to recall if she did or not, and then she widened her eyes. “I don’t believe it!” Usagi said as she was torn between breaking out laughing and being shocked. “It’s Kerai and Kaboku, isn’t it?” Mamoru said as he pretended not to be interested in them. “What are they doing here?” Usagi said, still trying to recover from the shock. Kerai looked around the restaurant. To her, the restaurant looked extremely quaint, but she was glad that she did not have to resort to arm-wrestling with the microwave again. “Something’s different,” Kaboku said as he also looked around. The place was dimly lit, but even so, he was able to catch a glimpse of two blonde ponytails. As Kaboku realized who it was, he leaned forward to see if he could make out whom Usagi was sitting with. Sure enough, Mamoru was sitting right across from her, and the two of them had spotted Kerai and him. “We should leave,” Kerai said as she tugged on Kaboku’s shirt. Kaboku didn’t want to leave because he knew that the senshi would leave them alone, so he saw no point. “They’ll tell the other senshi anyway,” Kaboku said as their waiter walked them to their table. The table that the waiter chose for them was on the other side of the restaurant, so the two couples could not see each other even if they wanted to. “Let’s just hope the other senshi don’t show up,” Kerai said after she sat down. “No, those two are on a date, the others wouldn’t show up in the middle of it,” Kaboku concluded. No matter how hard Kaboku tried to forget about the other couple, the restaurant seemed too clean and pure for his liking, but they stayed. “Why did we have to decide to do this again?” Rei asked as she picked up her pair of rented ice skates from the counter. “Come on, it’ll be fun!” Minako said in a happy voice as she also got her ice skates. “It would be so much easier if we knew how to ice skate properly,” Ami agreed with Rei as she began to put the ice skates on. “Why can’t we just skate on duct tape? It would be so much easier,” Kaichuu said as she went to the far corner of the small locker room to change her shoes for her skates. The inners, Kaichuu, Shakaku, and Kumori were ice-skating because they had nothing better to do on a Saturday morning, and they needed some bonding time. Minako and Makoto were the only ones who were in high spirits about skating, and the other girls still wondered why they even agreed to come. “Where are your skates, Shakaku?” Ami asked after she noticed that Shakaku had not picked up a pair of skates. “Too cold,” Shakaku said as she tucked her hands into her jacket. “Shakaku!” Kaichuu said after she also noticed that Shakaku wasn’t going to ice skate. “You have to. Please?” Kaichuu said as she brought out her lower lip in an attempt to make Shakaku feel guilty. “Kaichuu,” Shakaku said as she turned away because she knew that she could not stand the look on her friend’s face. “It’s cause she knows she can’t do it,” Kumori said. Kumori knew exactly how to pull Shakaku’s strings, and when she narrowed her eyes at him, he knew that he was in big trouble, and he was also going to get his ass kicked. Shakaku walked over to the counter, where she paid to rent some skates. As she walked over to the bench to put the skates on, she glared at Kumori, and he and Kaichuu smiled at each other. When all of the girls were ready to ice skate, they walked down the stairs into the ring, and they slowly began to move their way around. Usagi, managed to keep her balance, but Makoto’s grace and agility on the ice made Usagi look as pitiful as the others. Kumori and Kaichuu managed to keep their balance while holding hands, and they were soon slowly moving around the ice ring. Shakaku was clearly freezing to death from the cold that she wasn’t used to, but she still continued to try. She was going to prove Kumori wrong, and she was going to be able to ice skate. It took ten minutes for her to let go of the rail, but once she did, she began challenging herself, and she raced around the ring. She took her occasional dives, but she was determined to go faster. She took a serious dive when she turned a corner too fast, and it almost looked as though she had done a volleyball dig because she ended up on her stomach. Shakaku looked up to see Kumori and Kaichuu slowly skating, and she narrowed her eyes. She was going to do better than that. Makoto skated by Shakaku gracefully, and Shakaku watched curiously as she saw the other senshi spin gracefully. Makoto clearly had no problem with staying up and standing, and Shakaku guessed that Makoto had a lot of practice. Shakaku also wondered if Makoto was good because she was like that in the past. In the past even Usagi had been a good skater, and now, as ditzy as she was, she was able to maintain her balance, and she was skating without holding on to the rails. Shakaku decided to try the spins that Makoto was doing. Shakaku skated, and when she got to a certain speed, she turned her body, and she fell instantly. Makoto could spin all she wanted, but Shakaku decided to stick to practice turning corners. When Shakaku had finally gotten the hang of turning, she started to go even faster until a young man who was also going fast passed her without a problem. Shakaku stopped and held on to the rail as she watched him zoom by, and he turned his head towards her as he passed her for a second lap. When he came around to start his third lap, Shakaku raced forward, and the two raced without exchanging any words. The young man beat Shakaku easily, but she was glad that she had challenged herself into doing something that she had never done. As they finished racing, he almost touched her as he moved his arms to keep going. As he did that, Shakaku fell straight down on her backside, and she sat puzzled. She sat on the ice as she watched him race around again and again. Shakaku widened her eyes as she looked at his short, black, gray-tipped hair. It clicked that the young ice skater was no one other than Kaboku, which was why she had fallen when he touched her. “Are you ok?” Ami asked her friend as she slowly skated over to Shakaku. Shakaku brushed off the ice shavings from herself, and she nodded. She wasn’t going to tell any of the senshi just yet until she was sure. Kaboku skated by one more time, and as he passed the two girls, he looked back, and he saw Shakaku looking at him; she was more observant than he thought. Ami and Shakaku both skated off the ice, and Ami left Shakaku to sit on the bench as she went to get something to drink. Just as Shakaku was going to take her skates off for the day, Usagi walked up to her. “Shakaku, we need to talk,” Usagi said as she sat down next to the other girl. Shakaku wondered if Usagi had noticed Kaboku as well. “Sure,” Shakaku said slowly. “Mamoru and I went out yesterday, and you’ll never guess who we saw,” Usagi said. Shakaku pressed her lips together to keep herself from saying anything until she knew where Usagi was going with this conversation. “I might have some idea,” Shakaku managed to get out. “Kaboku and Kerai were there, and they didn’t even TRY to attack us,” Usagi explained, and it was clear that she still couldn’t believe it. Shakaku pretended to look puzzled, and she looked out onto the ice where Kaichuu and Kumori were still skating. “Kyuuteki must have done something,” Shakaku suggested. She widened her eyes as she saw Kaboku finally notice Kaichuu and Kumori skating, and she smiled as she could make out the look on Kaboku’s face. “We’ll have to be more careful,” Shakaku said as she rose from her seat. Usagi was puzzled that Shakaku hadn’t made more comments about that like Usagi had expected her to. Usagi wrapped her jacket around her, and she tried to walk back into the ring without falling flat on her face. Kaboku went for one last lap around the ring. For some strange reason, he found ice-skating exhilarating, and it was the next best thing to training in the Dark Realm. As he turned a corner, he saw Phoenix and Mercury skate off the ice, and he watched them sit down on the benches. He knew perfectly well that Shakaku had seen him because she had made direction eye contact with him, and he couldn’t miss the look of recognition on her face. Kaboku got off the ice, and he was whipping his rented skates free from ice shavings, he turned to see Aquaria and Kumori skating around. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t seen them before considering Aquaria’s hair was hard to miss because it was a brilliant shade of silver. Kaboku shook his head in disgust as he began to make his way up to where Kerai was sitting. Just as he reached Kerai, Kaboku noticed Shakaku sitting alone at the bottom of the benches. His first reaction was the need to run down there and attack her in some form, but he could feel Kerai shoot him a warning glance. “Is it hard?” Kerai asked as she tried to get Kaboku’s mind off attacking the senshi. She knew that once Kaboku had his mind set on something, it was almost certain that he was not going to change his mind. “No,” Kaboku said without thinking as he absentmindedly began to walk in Shakaku’s direction. “Stop,” Kerai warned as she took a tight hold on Kaboku’s shirt. Kaboku sat back on one of the benches, and he began taking off his skates. He couldn’t see why Kyuuteki didn’t want them to attack the senshi. What was the point of them being there if that was the case? “The other senshi are here, dummy,” Kerai said as she pointed to the other girls who were out on the ice. “At least let me challenge her to a race,” Kaboku said. His need to inflict pain was growing stronger, and he longed to see at least one of the senshi get beat up. “You know the second she sees your face again she’ll try her hardest to knock you out,” Kerai warned. “But she can’t,” Kaboku said. “She’s only a girl.” “Only a girl? That makes me want to let you,” Kerai growled angrily. “It’s not like she hasn’t beat you before.” Kaboku gritted his teeth at the mention at that event, and he turned around and grabbed Kerai by the shirt. “Don’t bring that up; not now.” “Denial,” Kerai whispered to herself. However, she couldn’t help liking his determination to get the senshi back for kicking his butt so very long ago. “Let’s just leave before the senshi notice us,” Kerai said as she got up. Kaboku was disappointed that he didn’t get the opportunity to beat up any of the senshi, but he understood, so he also got up. “At least we found them,” Kerai said after the two walked into the parking lot. “But we didn’t get to hurt them,” Kaboku said as he was still disappointed. “Next time,” Kerai promised with a smile. Kaboku couldn’t help but feeling that Kerai was getting some satisfaction from going out and doing something together on earth. Kaboku tried to shake this off, but the idea of human affection bothered him. “Hey!” Kerai said, breaking the silence. Kaboku turned, and he knew that what she had to say wasn’t good. “Valentine’s Day is coming up,” she finished with a smile. From his study of human culture, Kaboku knew what Valentine’s Day was, and he didn’t like the idea one bit. It wasn’t like he had a special someone to share the day with anyway. Kaboku turned to Kerai, who was looking up at him hopefully, but he shook his head and turned the other way. No, he didn’t have any special someone to share the day with.