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They met for the last time quite by accident, on the platform of the Juuban station. Literally ran into each other, you could say.
"Oh!"
"I'm sorry!"
Their eyes met, and there was the sudden jolt of recognition, and the oddest sense of disbelief, as if neither of them were quite sure the other was real.
"Haruka," Michiru said in slow bewilderment. "You've let your hair grow." She reached out one wondering hand to touch the curling wisps that brushed the collar of Haruka's coat.
"It's been a while." Haruka said uncertainly in reply. An uneasy, tentative distance stretched between them, of long-ago friends meeting by no design of their own, of old lovers reunited too late.
"How many years now? Six? Seven? They all start to blur together after a while."
"Nine," Haruka said gently.
"You look..." Michiru waved one fine-boned hand in an all-encompassing gesture.
"Older?" Haruka's response was teasing, slipping back into familiar patterns with an ease that surprised her.
"Yes," Michiru said, looking her critically up and down with the eye of an artist.
Haruka was dressed neatly, if conservatively, in pressed linen slacks, a pale blue silk blouse (she'd bought it on a whim because it made her eyes look startlingly dark) and a short navy coat. Her makeup was minimal, and a simple gold chain glittered around her neck.
"Nobody will mistake you for a boy now." Michiru's tone was light, but underlaid with resonances that echoed half with regret, and half with an unreasoning betrayal.
"You cut your hair," Haruka replied inanely, staring. Cropped short, Michiru's hair curled close around her face. It made her cheekbones look much higher and the lines of her face much sharper. It made her look like a stranger.
"Yes." She reached up to touch the shorn curls at the nape of her neck. "It's less of a... liability like this."
Haruka was struck with the sudden memory of the curve of Michiru's cheekbones and the silk of her skin beneath her palms as she cupped her face in her hands, and the way Michiru's hair spilled forward over the back of her hands and across her wrists. Her hair, Haruka recalled, smelled sweetly of orange blossoms when it was wet. It must have been the shampoo she used. Or still used, for all Haruka knew.
"It makes you look--"
"Older?" It wasn't quite a taunt. Her voice was just this side of cruel.
It could have been the short hair, or maybe the tailored suit she wore with studied grace, but most likely it was a certain set of the mouth and calculating wariness of the eyes. Michiru looked... harder. Sharper. The graceful prettiness of the girl she had been was tempered and refined.
"Very grown-up," Haruka allowed gravely.
"Would... would you like to join me for a cup of coffee?" Michiru asked formally.
"That would be lovely," Haruka said in like kind, and realized with a vague sense of surprise that she meant it.
"I'm glad." Michiru smiled, and it was the same sweet smile with just a bit of wickedness that she'd always had, and she didn't look nearly so much like a stranger any more.
And so they found a street corner café, and Haruka had to suppress the automatic reflex to order for both of them, and Michiru smiled wistfully, and let her.
"You're not racing any more, are you?" she asked, lifting the cup of fragrant tea to her lips.
"No, not after that last time, four years ago. I almost didn't walk away from that one," she admitted soberly, both hands wrapped around the steaming mug of coffee in front of her. "How did you know?"
"Makoto kept a scrapbook of all your matches." Michiru smiled secretively.
"And Amy had an annotated notebook of all the reviews of your concerts and exhibitions," Haruka countered, grinning.
"Did she now?" Michiru laughed softly. "It's always the quiet ones. Well, it's been years since I've had time for that sort thing. Have you given up music as well?"
"It just wasn't the same without you."
"I know." Michiru looked away. "I'm sorry. For the way it ended."
"So am I."
It had indeed ended badly.
They had first met at the school track, and though Haruka had admired the pretty girl with the sketchpad, that hadn't been when it all started. No, it had been when she'd knelt on the cold concrete in front of a monster, reaching tentatively for the odd, jeweled pen that appeared in front of her.
"Don't!" cried a girl's voice in shrill alarm.
And Haruka had stopped, considered, and withdrawn her hand. It wasn't caution or fear that prompted her decision, but sheer stubbornness over whatever mysterious power presumed to try to rule her life.
And the lovely Sailor Neptune saved her, and the two of them fell madly, deeply, passionately in love.
True, some days Haruka wished more than anything that she had reached out and taken hold of the henshin wand, but always underneath it all, she was horribly, selfishly glad that her life was still her own.
And for a while, they were happy. Blissfully happy and head over heels in love.
"Tell me a story," Haruka murmured one night, head pillowed on Michiru's lap. Michiru ran soothing fingers through her lover's fine hair, and told her a tale of a prince and a princess, and a kingdom on the moon, of brave warriors, and love that never died.
Before she was halfway through, Haruka was fast asleep.
And Michiru had kissed her brow, curled up spooned against her, and also fell asleep.
But as time went on, the most important difference between them became irreconcilable.
Michiru was a Sailor Senshi.
Haruka was not.
Haruka became controlling and harsh.
Michiru became bitter and resentful.
And though they were still madly, deeply, passionately in love, that wasn't enough.
Haruka would catch Michiru watching her, sometimes with pity or regret in her eyes, sometimes with resentment.
But the day she looked and saw something perilously close to hate was the day that she left for good.
It had begun as yet one more argument in a long string of bitter, repetitive fights. It began with the inconsequential, who left the wet towels on the floor, who drank the last of the milk, and proceeded as always. Who was out late last night and forgot to call home. Who refused to look whom in the eye. Haruka threw harsh, angry words. Michiru was coldly, remotely pleasant and cruel.
This time, they pushed too far. This time, they both said unforgivable things.
"You are so selfish. It's always about you, you, you. What you want. What you need. Did you ever, just once, just for a single minute, stop to think about the rest of the world?" Michiru said icily, lips tight and pale with rage.
"What about you? You never think of anything but the rest of the world! It's always duty, and destiny, and the fate of the universe! Is your duty and your high destiny more important you than I am?" Haruka said fiercely in reply, white-knuckled, shaking hands balled into tight fists at her side.
Michiru looked away and did not answer.
Haruka did not slam the door when she left, but closed it gently behind her. She never went back.
"So what do you do now?" Michiru asked formally, breaking the uneasy silence.
"I teach automotives at a tech school, in Osaka," Haruka replied, knowing full well how defensive she sounded. "It's not glamourous, but I enjoy it."
"Mmm, I can see that," was Michiru's non-committal reply. "So what brings you back to Tokyo?"
"My father is very ill," Haruka said quietly.
"Oh. Oh, I'm sorry, Haruka." Michiru laid a sympathetic hand on her forearm. Haruka squeezed her hand silently in response.
"Are... are you seeing anyone?" she asked tentatively.
Michiru shook her head. "No, not recently. There's been the odd, fling, I guess you could call them--" Her lips quirked up in reminiscence "--but nothing serious. Not since--" She stopped, hesitated.
"Since me," Haruka acknowledged.
"Yes. I try not to make the same mistakes twice." Michiru met her eyes unblinkingly. "And you?"
"Nothing serious either," Haruka echoed, though it wasn't strictly the truth. There had been the one girl from Kyoto, that had been fierce and hot and ended dramatically. And a sweet young thing at the college, but the two of them had simply drifted apart.
Haruka's coffee was luke-warm, but she drank it anyhow. Michiru finished her tea in silence, and when they were both done, she over-ruled all of Haruka's protests and paid for them both.
"Well," Haruka said uncomfortably, standing on the busy street outside, "I guess this is goodbye. Again."
"Setsuna told me once," Michiru said distantly, "that who we were shapes who we are today, but we shouldn't let it control everything about who we become." She didn't need to add that this had been shortly after Haruka had left. "There is always," she said, eyes far-away and terribly fierce and horribly sorrowful all at once, "always a choice."
"Yes," Haruka acknowledged softly, throat tight. "There is."
"Are... are you happy with your life?" Michiru whispered, eyes bright.
"I... I think I am," Haruka said slowly. Much to her surprise, she found it was true. She had no one true love, her father was dying, and her regrets were too numerous to count, but when all was said and done, she was... content. Not deliriously happy, but satisfied none the less. "What about you?"
"I do what I have to." Michiru said formally, coldly. Her face softened just the slightest bit. "I... I wish it had ended differently."
Haruka leaned forward on a whim, and brushed her lips chastely across her former lover's cheek. She tasted salt and thought of the sea, but when she pulled back, Michiru's eyes were closed, her face was suspiciously damp.
And she was smiling.
"Goodbye," Haruka said softly.
"Sayonara." Michiru reached out, touched her cheek gently, then turned and vanished into the crowd.