2598/Wedding Bells

Wedding Bells
Date of Scene:	07 June 2025
Location:	Mamoru's Apartment
Synopsis:	Shortly after her arrival in the 21st Century, Mamoru joked about marrying Kazuo first if he Wicked Lady denied permission for a certain other wedding. Today, Kazuo suffers interrogation for that. Good news, he passes!
Cast of Characters:	Usagi Tsukino, Kazuo Saitou
Tinyplot:	Black Moon Clan
Tinyplot2:	BMC: Wicked Ride

---

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It starts with a text message, one that's cheerful enough, even in tone.
    
Usagi txt: Kazuo-kun, I want to talk to you.     
Usagi txt: It's about something important.     
Usagi txt: I know Mamochan's told you everything. Let's meet on the rooftop in thirty, okay?

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo txt: thirty it is. unless it's thirty seconds, it will take me a little more than that.

It is not raining at this moment, though drizzle is an everpresent threat this weekend. Kazuo has been up on the roof since seven minutes after that text, with a basket, because greeting any variation of Usagi without baked goods and something to drink with them is a necessity. Makoto is busy, so the baked goods are necessarily commercial, but that just means there's a variety tucked in.

Not all of them are variants on cream-filled pastry. Some of them are even savory.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
    I'll see you there!

Thirty minutes later - well, maybe a minute or two early - New Moon is there, in her typical gothic dress, in her straw hat with the mauve ribbon, with her black crescent moon...

And with her shoulder length pink hair, containing just a bit of a wave, still, from having been bound so often in the braid and the odango. There's a vaguely displeased look on her face, when the wind - it's not very windy, but this high up there's always a wind - stirs up her short hair, but it dissipates easily enough, when she sees the basket.

"Snacks," she chirps cheerfully, "You always know just what to bring."

And one of the cream-filled pastries is scooped from the basket, opened, and devoured, all in a single swift motion of eldritch consumptive talent. Ah, the devouring maw of the Usagi, truly second only to the ability of the Ami to devour an entire burger in one go.

"You know, Mamochan said that if Wicked Lady didn't let us get married, he'd just marry you first instead."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo is admittedly not entirely certain that Ami doesn't have a couple of snakes in her family tree. Not in the insulting way. Just in the how could she do that without being able to unhinge her jaw way. Usagi at least limits herself to things that visibly fit in her mouth, and thus the only question is whether her lungs are secretly connected to her digestive system. Which he is never asking about.

He bows to New Moon all the same. "Naru would be terribly disappointed in me if I didn't," he says. "If she's willing to trust some of the rest of us to keep you fed, we'd better not let her down."

And then Usagi says the next thing, and Kazuo blinks. Mildly. "Well," he says. "That's assuming a good deal on his end, isn't it?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The secrets of a girl's digestion can never be revealed, though they would shock and stun the world at large. This is for the best, as is the fact that New Moon is pleased by the bow, her lips quirking in a smile.

"You're not wrong about that. If her running buddy forgot the secrets she shared, she'd be awfully disappointed."

Kunzite is, after all, very important to multiple people in her life. She would hate to have to hurt him.

It's a good thing she doesn't have to, huh?

"That's what I think," she says agreeably, "It's not like you even proposed, right?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo keeps Usagi not having to hurt him as a conscious priority in his existence for many reasons. Indeed.

"Right," Kazuo agrees aloud. "Besides. If Wicked Lady didn't let the two of you get married, I'd be reduced to giving her sad looks in the hopes that she changed her mind."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"...I could see that working," New Moon considers after a long moment. "If only because I can't remember a time you've ever made a sad face. It's probably supoer effective..."

And then she shakes her head, hair bouncing around her neck, as she remembers -

"Not the point. I came to make sure you weren't trying to step up and be the first spouse! And you're not, which is good for all of us." Because she most certainly has seen Mamoru's sad face, and she would end up seeing it again. "And seeing as that's the case... I've decided to interrogate you."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"I'd probably have to practice. It might be more effective for making her laugh, but at least that would put her in a good mood." -- but ah! Not the point. Kazuo picks up one of the bottled drinks and opens it, offering it to her with a briefly inquisitive look; she gets first refusal on that, too.

... and then ... she what. "Of course I'm not trying to step up and be first spouse. You were there first and you're --" He gestures with his free hand. "I can't put it into words well; it's all physics in my head. He belongs with you. He magnets to you. Nothing where people try to make him do anything else could ever be stable."

A pause.

"What did you want to interrogate me about?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Every word is not flattering, but genuine and thus satisfying. Usagi Tsukino is known for her jealousy, her possessiveness, and it's one of the things she matches Mamoru in - the two of them, wanting to keep and hold onto what's theirs, looking out for what could try and take their places, their people.

She's never been threatened by Kazuo, save for that brief time, when Hematite asked about being interested in two people - and then said one was a boy. And well. That was different. Kunzite is different.

"I'm glad you know that," she says sincerely, "Because it's true. He's mine and I'm his and we're both Wicked Lady's, of course, but - you. What are your intentions?"

And she cocks her head, and then she walks around him, slow, looking him over from every angle.

"Do you think you want to marry him, some day? Or is that something you'd want to save for Zoisite, now that two has become three? Is there another ring, in the future? Nephrite knows he wants to marry Mako-chan. Zoisite was deadset enough on you to set Mina-chan's bow on fire. What does your heart want?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
He starts to turn to follow her, then understands what she's doing, and stops to let her do her looking. Doesn't speak, because that movement, that circling, is a carrying-on of her question. So he waits, and lets her talk. Lets her interrogate, as she put it. And the question after question is an interrogation after all. But the last question, at least, is something he knows his answer to.

"My heart," he says, quiet and low and serious, "wants them to be happy."

A breath, and his mouth tugs up at one corner, and he offers her the opened bottle a second time, just in case she missed it the first. He's not going to be able to take advantage of it himself for a little bit, after all.

"Which is easy to say, but has a thousand thousand complications. The first and easiest is that that means that I want you to be happy - and Wicked Lady to be happy, of course. The second is that short-term happiness and long-term happiness aren't always the same thing, and sometimes the one gets in the way of the other."

He shifts again, offering a little shrug with his free arm. "I don't know what Zoisite is going to wind up wanting, in the end. Maybe me. Or maybe I'm a safe haven for him to come back to between exploring possibilities. I don't know the limits of what Mamoru will have time in his life to pursue. I don't know the limits on what marriage can look like, or what it should; the only one I've seen play out is my grandparents', and that's not quite fair, because my grandfather adores my grandmother in nearly the same way that Mamoru adores you.

"So I don't have a specific future I'm trying to build toward. I've - tried to let go of that. Instead I do my best to help you and Mamoru and the others build your futures. And I'll see where I wind up belonging in them."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
As she circles him once more, she takes the bottle, and drinks, as he speaks, settling only then. At his desire for them to be happy, her mouth quirks - because happiness, truly, is such a simple thing to say and a hard thing to imagine, and the heart is a selfish thing, too, wanting more than just for the happiness of others.

But he carries on, and she savors the sweetness of the drink, and the more complex realities of the words.

"Happiness is hard to manage," she murmurs, "So many things can go wrong, and so many lines can be crossed. But you've always had a gift for seeing how things fit together. It's what makes it easy to approve of you." Her head tilts, and she contemplates him anew.

"That's true. It's hard to decide you want to marry someone if they're not ready, or if they might flit away, once they've had what they wanted." Not that she'd have to worry about that - her Mamoru is the best, which is why she needed to gauge these intentions.

"Where we're concerned, the only limits are what we want. You saw our future. Now that we know we could live that long, do you think we'll live any less?" She wrinkles her nose. "Without the queen part, I hope. Wicked Lady might deserve to rule, but she would be happier without being a princess legally."

Distracted, briefly, her thoughts find their way back to their original landing point - her interrogation.

"I would call that sad," she says dryly, "But I'm glad you'd rather fit in than chart your own path, because we have too many mapmakers as it is, and you're very good at finding your place. Very well. I've decided that you have my permission to propose to Mamoru, after our wedding. He'll say yes, so you don't really need to worry about checking in with him. Just be ready before he's... mmm, forty?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Her Mamoru is indeed the best. And indeed hers. Kazuo is ... relatively certain Zoisite is not going to leave him for Saphir.

Mostly.

... and that brief distraction is important, Kazuo thinks. Glancing off a measure of internal contradiction; what she wants for Wicked Lady versus what she's supposed to want. Noticing something's wrong. Failing to notice herself noticing.

That's good. That's very good. That means Usagi might be coming home from this after all.

"I'm happy with surveying and laying out the roads after our mapmakers decide which direction they want to go in," Kazuo replies, with a brief wry quirk of his mouth. "Which I suppose means there's a little of my father in me after all, whether I like it or not. But -" He bows toward New Moon, deep and respectful. "Thank you for your permission. And I think we'll be able to sort things out before he's forty. If nothing else, we'll need to figure out which kind of uncle you want me to be to your children; the babysits-on-call kind or the kind where the toddlers swarm his space on a whim."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
A regal nod, spoiled by a swig of sweet beverage, a smile settling into welcome place on New Moon's face. She had doubted, briefly, with Mamoru's little joke, his little daring suggestion, but it's true - Kunzite is reliable. The sins of the past are not being repeated, are not in danger of reemergence, and trust has not been misplaced.

Usagi Tsukino tolerated many things. New Moon tolerates far fewer. Neither of them tolerate a encroachment on their territory.

And Kazuo is threading the needle well.

"You'll have to tell me about your father someday," she instructs him, "But not today. I've been interrogating you on enough important personal subjects."

A beat.

"Well, I think you'll figure it out before he's forty. But you've got three monkeys tied to your backs, so I think it's only fair to give you an extended deadline."

The other Shitennou seem bit, you know. Burdened.

"Oh, definitely the second one," she says, cheerful, and then, pauses, frowning very faintly - "Would Wicked Lady want siblings..." they're supposed to have at least three. Probably four, to avoid a middle child.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Someday, but not today. Kazuo inclines his head to New Moon. He'd say it'd be a short discussion, but this is Usagi; the reason it'd be a short discussion might make it not a short discussion. Best to leave it alone.

"We'll do our best to de-monkify Sanjouin before he becomes also Makoto's problem," Kazuo says instead. "But I think she'll handle more of that than we'd be able to, anyhow." Probably by breathing. Possibly by punching him. Punching worked very well in Kazuo's case.

And then there's that question. Hm. "That," Kazuo says, "is not a question either you or I can answer right now. I'll put plans together for multiple possibilities, and you and Mamoru can laugh at me about it, and we'll use none of the plans but pieces of several of them - that's the way it usually goes, anyhow."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"If he annoys her too much, she'll suplex him," and she's wistful, because she doesn't dislike Nephrite, genuinely, but she hasn't decided if he's good enough for Makoto, either, and yet, she also knows that her dear friend could put him into the ground if it came down to it.

"True. You'll make a spreadsheet, or six, and maybe a graph to show the possibilities and stuff, and it will be funny. Calculate the odds. Maybe figure out where the pink came from."

Wry, but then after that - she looks at him for a long moment.

"Two more weeks, Kazuo-kun. Everything will be different, then."

And she's gone, leaving him alone on the rooftop.