1998/Paint It Black

Paint It Black
Date of Scene:	13 October 2024
Location:	Mamoru's Apartment
Synopsis:	Usagi and Mamoru have a wonderful Sunday, fussing with the new apartment and painting and rollerskating and generally having a lot of fun and some of it's even constructive... and then Mamoru gets a letter saying he can't have his new apartment.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Usagi Tsukino

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Honestly the contractors have been the kind of permissive and forgiving that only happens for the very rich who enjoy tipping. They let Mamoru and Usagi and Kazuo and friends break walls and rollerskate in the in-progress rug-free not-yet-hardwood living room as soon as it's safe for them to do so.

They even left a rudimentary wooden railing in front of the windows so the idiot kids don't skate through and fall seven stories to the sidewalk below.

Today, they are done with skating, and Mamoru's unpacking the expensive black paint and rollers and brushes for doing a little interior design on the bedroom that's otherwise finished. "The goth room can also be the server room. We can paint the ceiling and floor black too! And get blackout curtains. Should we put glow in the dark stars on the ceiling though?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The contractors have no idea that these idiot kids have strategies on what to do (besides pray to their maker) if they fall seven stories. And it's not like they can be blamed - who would think the uber rich boss was magic? An idiot, that was who.

Still, Usagi has been plenty delighted to skate and break walls and help Mamoru ensure he has the perfect space all for himself. With her skates off and the painting supplies taken out, Usagi takes a moment to consider the room they're making as goth as can be, and nods decisively.

"We definitely should. If the power ever goes out or someone ever gets stuck in here, they'll see the stars and now they aren't trapped in emo-goth-darkness hell."

Because that's likely to happen.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Ahaha, we'll even paint the doors black-- on the other side of that door is what I am determinedly calling Kazuo's room even though he says he'll sleep on the couch in this room, where all the computer security stuff will be..."

Silly Kazuo.

The best idea for painting a room black is wearing black clothes, right? Maybe not, maybe they should have gone with plastic ponchos made of contractor plastic, but it's not the kind of mess Mamoru minds-- and they definitely don't paint themselves into a corner. It's a very spacious room, but there's not quite enough space to henshin and superjump out the door into the hall from the back corner.

---

At lunchtime, there's definitely black paint on their arms and hands, and invisible black paint on their clothes, and several times before they put her hair up and in a big plastic shower cap that they had to wash black paint out of Usagi's hair before it dried.

"I like the mosaic floor in the kitchen, but that'll take even more time to complete before the place is good to move in to," Mamoru says, turning the magazine around to show Usagi the tiled kitchen and its brilliant mosaic floor. He takes a big bite of sandwich in the meantime.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Black clothing to keep the black paint from showing while they painted the black-as-your-soul goth room. What could go wrong with that plan?

Well, one of the things that had gone wrong was the need to wash paint out of Usagi's hair before it dried and took sections out with it - unforeseen but should have been foreseen, and which had taken much scrambling, wailing, and laughing to resolve before she finally twisted her twin tails into a single enormous bun and stuck her hair in a hair cap -

But aside from that, it really had gone very well. She's proud of the work they've done, and very sure the contractors won't have to go over anything they did.

Mostly sure.

"Ooooh," Usagi hums, looking at the flooring - "It's pretty, though, and you'd want something you wouldn't have to redo because you don't like it as much, right?"

Delaying the move in is a real concern, she won't pretend it's not, but -

"If you like it, you should do it. And maybe if the rest of the place is done, you could still move in even if they're still working on the kitchen. You could just have take out in the living room instead of cooking?"

It's a question mostly because she's realizing she's not sure if Mamoru can cook.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Takeout in the living room sounds great," Mamoru can't cook at all, "and yeah! And also if I make one or more of the boys take the other two apartments on this floor, we could use their kitchen." And their cooking. If they can even cook. This may have been an oversight. "Can you cook? I can't cook. Maybe we should get Kazuo to cook."

He looks at the pattern in the magazine again, then at Usagi again, then at the pattern, and he nods decisively. "You're right. Mosaic kitchen floor! With a poly seal over it so it doesn't get destroyed from use~"

Mamoru is grinning, and he reaches over to take Usagi's hand for a moment, lace fingers and squeeze. "This is going to be so great. And look, look at these stained glass lamps-- do you think that's overdoing it? I would put up tapestries but the walls aren't stone, haha."

Endymion is doing some of the decorations, apparently.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I asked Chiyo-chan to teach me to cook! And Makochan too, I was helping when we figured out how to make your cookies," the kaak warqa Makoto was still refining, though the taste was likely as close as it could manage without varieties of spices likely modified out of existence in the thousands of years since they had been used, "So I'm getting better? Not uh, good, though."

It's definitely an oversight, the fact that she's pretty sure not a single one of them can cook, except maybe Kazuo-kun. He was cool enough that he might be able to cook.

"And yeah! I don't know where Zoisite lives, but he seems like he'd want to be your neighbor. And Nephrite does have that spooky mansion, but like, it's soooo far away -" and was haunted - "That he might want to move in too! Aaand I don't think he can cook either. Maybe Makochan will want to live downstairs when we graduate, and she can cook for us. We'll pay her!"

Makochan, rescue them!

"Mosiac floor! And yes, poly seal!" She's not sure why the seal needs multiple partners but love is love is love, right?

She takes a bite of her sandwich right before Mamoru laces their fingers together, and has to hurriedly swallow so she doesn't beam with bread and meat between her teeth.

"Mamochan, my darling, my love, your apartment is bigger than half the dorm building. I don't think we get to worry about overdoing it. Follow your heart!"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Okay!" says Mamoru, breathless, and then he laughs, "Jewel tones and fancy lamps and tapestries and artwork and dark bookshelves and books on them-- maybe not antique furniture, our friends can be rowdy..."

It's another few hours they're there, cheerfully taping up magazine pages and taking pictures of where and what, checking on the black room to see if it's dry yet, maybe rollerskating a little bit more, considering which space to set up either a temporary big or a small-but-permanent ball pit or whether to worry about that later, considering whether to have a roof garden (of course there will be a roof garden)...

Eventually, they walk back to school, getting taiyaki and other such delicious sweet snacks on the way-- it's like a date, but not a date, because calling anything a date is a recipe for trouble unless they're starting with the fight--

It's not until they're back in Mamoru and Koji's room that Mamoru goes through the stack of mail he picked up from the dorm's mail room. "Ads, ads, ads-- oh something from my lawyer, cool-- oh what, something from the Housing Bureau--?"

He opens the letter, and it looks like it's three pages long, but it's the same letter three times. Paperwork in triplicate or just a mistake? And as he reads the letter, his expression tanks and a pit in the bottom of his stomach yawns wide, threatening to pull all his spiritual innards into it like a supermassive black hole-- he gives a copy to Usagi, and he's holding two, and he opens the door with a shaky hand. "I'm--I'm getting Kazuo, and we need to go to the housing bureau right now--"