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Renjun slips through his bedroom window, careful not to make a sound. His flat mate should be asleep by this hour, but Renjun has learned to expect the unexpected with Donghyuck. The last thing he needs is for Donghyuck to catch on to his late-night excursions. He would either ask too many nosy questions, or come to some wild conclusion about Renjun’s love life and truly make his life hell. While realistically it would be better Hyuck to assume he was sneaking away for secret trysts with his new boyfriends rather than running through the night as a much-maligned Sailor Scout, Renjun’s dignity can only take so much.
That night had been quiet, anyhow. It was the third night in a row without any enemy activity, which would normally be a good thing, but if karma decided to catch up with them tomorrow night, Renjun would be very annoyed. He had a date tomorrow; the first night in two weeks that his, Jeno’s, and Jaemin’s schedules all aligned. Between the stress of his exams and his patrols, Renjun is in dire need of some TLC.
He tosses his transformation pen to the side (it doesn’t matter where it lands; it always ends up back in Renjun’s hand when he needs it) and crawls into bed, hoping that his luck will hold out.
☽☽☽
Renjun should know better than to provoke fate like that. It had been a shitty day, start to finish. He woke to find that Donghyuck had forgotten to turn off the kitchen tap all the way, and had left the drain blocked off with a pan he’d left to “soak,” so there was a mini-flood Renjun had to clean up before he could leave for class. His morning class was another nightmare where they were paired up to do group work for the entire block, and Renjun was assigned to work with one of the stoners who sits in the back of the lecture hall. It would have been preferably if his partner had just slept or given up, but instead she kept trying to contribute even though she was basically incapable of constructing a coherent sentence. After that mess, he had to buy lunch at the overpriced campus cafeteria, since he didn’t have time to make anything that morning. His afternoon class was also a disaster—pop quizzes were one thing, but pop tests?
By the time the evening draws near, Renjun wants nothing more than a relaxing date. After he chewed Donghyuck out for the mess that morning, Hyuck had lent him his new jacket and also styled his hair, so Renjun’s looking pretty hot. An acceptable consolation.
He’s been looking forward to this evening for a while. Since classes started up again and a new entourage of villains moved in to terrorize Seoul, it’s been harder to find time to see his boyfriends. They’ve only been dating for about three months, long enough that he’s started feeling the “L-word” but way too soon to verbalize it. Jeno and Jaemin have been together since high school, but Renjun’s been able to fit in to the relationship very snugly, and their dynamic sets him at ease.
Jeno picks Renjun up at 7 on the dot, Jaemin greeting him with a quick kiss as he slides into the backseat to join him.
“Where are we headed?” Renjun asks. They’ve been trading off date planning and this time it was Jaemin’s turn, but he’d been stubbornly mum about the plans all week.
“You’ll see,” Jaemin said, eyes twinkling. “I kept it secret this long, what’s a few more minutes?”
Renjun pouts. “No fair… Jeno did he tell you?”
“Well, he needed me to drive there, so he had to,” Jeno replies mildly.
“What! That’s unfair Jaemin, you’re playing favorites!”
“Well, to even the playing field,” Jaemin leans in, breath cool and minty as it fans over Renjun’s face, “We could have some fun while Jeno has to drive.”
“Hm, I suppose that’s acceptable.” Renjun grabs Jaemin’s collar to pull him in for a kiss, only parting at Jeno’s distressed squawking.
“Jaemin, get your damn seatbelt on first!”
By the time they pull up into the concert hall parking lot, Renjun has been satisfactorily appeased. Making out with a boyfriend for twenty minutes was a lovely start to the evening and finding out he got them tickets to the symphony’s season opening performance only makes it better. He makes sure to give Jeno a deep kiss once the car is parked before they head inside, three abreast with Renjun in the middle.
“Jaemin, you need to learn how to drive so we can switch off in the future…” Jeno grumbles.
Jaemin blows him a kiss from Renjun’s other side. “Never going to happen, sweetheart.”
“Or maybe next time we could just all take the subway, so no one has to drive,” Renjun rolls his eyes.
“Oooooh, is Renjun down for some public indecency? Sounds fun!”
Renjun swats at Jaemin, who just catches his hand and kisses the back of it before he laces their fingers together. God, what a Casanova. Renjun wills his face not to flush to avoid encouraging him. Not to be left out, Jeno grabs his other hand, and they shuffle a little awkwardly through the entrance and down to their seats without breaking the connection.
The performance itself is exquisite. Renjun hasn’t been to a concert since before he awoke as a Sailor Scout and had that new extracurricular activity to eat up his leisure time. It’s nice, even nicer flanked by his two boyfriends, even when Jaemin dozes off after the first movement. Jeno stops Renjun before he can try to shake him awake.
“Let’s let him sleep for a bit, he hasn’t been getting much rest lately. We’ll wake him up near the finale, yeah? Then he’ll be all recharged for our dinner at the Le Repas de Fantaisie.”
“That fancy new French place? Wow, if I’d known what was on the docket for this evening, I would have dressed a little nicer.”
Jeno brushes his hand over Renjun’s cheek and Renjun swears his heart stutters. “You look perfect, Renjun. You always do.”
They hold hands and enjoy the music as Jaemin softly snores into Renjun’s shoulder, until a particularly loud horn section startles him awake.
“Sleep well?” Renjun whispers with a giggle.
Jaemin nods and shudders, suppressing what Renjun knows would be a full-body cat-like stretch if he didn’t have to worry about blocking the view of the audience behind them. Renjun adores a sleepy Jaemin. “Gotta pee,” Jaemin mumbles, patting Renjun’s hair clumsily and staggering out of the row and down the aisle to the exit.
Jeno presses a quick kiss to Renjun’s cheek. “I’ll go with him and make sure he doesn’t fall down any stairs. Be right back!”
Renjun gives him a smile and a nod and focuses back in on the music as the movement draws to a close.
It’s then that everything goes to shit, of course. Maniacal laughter fills the hall, overpowering the music. The people sitting around him clasp their hands over their ears and begin yelling and writhing in their seats. Renjun’s ears ring, but he’s not nearly as affected; he slides out of the aisle and into a curtained enclave he saw on their way in.
He thrusts his hand into the air, fingers closing around his transformation pen. “Saturn Planet Power, Make Up!”
Most of the audience has passed out when he emerges, glaive in hand, though some seem to have been able to get out the emergency exit before collapsing. On stage is what looks like a woman clad in a “sexy violin” costume from a discount Halloween store; Renjun can’t begin to understand what makes Daimons take such stupid looking forms, but maybe it’s a quirk of their evil masterminds. He wouldn’t know.
The violin Daimon is barking out an operatic laugh as it advances on the cowering conductor on stage. That’s Renjun’s cue.
He leaps onto the stage between the Daimon and its quarry and pushes his glaive out defensively. “Silent Wall!” He calls, and a barrier springs up, knocking the Daimon back. It squeals but reorients quickly.
“Sailor Saturn! How dare you!”
Renjun rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, how dare I stop your evil plan to… what? Steal this man’s heart crystal or some nonsense? Save it.” He looks over his shoulder and jerks his head towards backstage, hoping the conductor would get the hint and book it. Renjun needs space to work his powers. Unfortunately, the Daimon’s would-be victim is frozen in fear, so that’s incredibly unhelpful.
The Daimon seems to sense his predicament, laughing again. “No, this is even better than I planned! My mistress has been looking for you, Sailor Saturn, and oh, how pleased she’ll be when I deliver her both the pure heart crystal and your head!”
Renjun can’t figure out where all these monsters get this level of self-confidence from. Must be because they don’t last long enough to realize how far outclassed they are by Sailor Scouts. Any Scout would be able to take this Daimon out easily, but Renjun? He’s the equivalent of bringing a nuke to a knife fight. He tries to rotate, hoping that he’s caught its attention successfully and he can make enough room to take some offensive action without it pouncing on the conductor.
The Daimon gestures and the instruments of the unconscious orchestra rise into the air. That’s… not great, Renjun realizes, as the set of heavy tympani drums start to rotate above the defenseless civilians’ heads.
“World—Shaking!” A deep rumbling precedes a tremendous gale of wind that meets the instruments in the air and blows them harmlessly to the empty area upstage and backstage. The Daimon shrieks, enraged, as two more Scouts leap onto the stage to join them.
“Saturn,” Sailor Neptune greets him with a glower. Sailor Uranus glares and rises from a crouch. “You should leave now; we’ve got this covered.”
“Excuse me? I think I’ve got this just fine, thanks.” Renjun used to try harder not to rise to the bait, but the way the other Scouts treat him gets under his skin like nothing else. Just because his past incarnation almost destroyed the world, they think he’s a ticking time bomb rather than another guardian. Sailor Moon and his entourage can be civil with him at times, but Uranus and Neptune are another level of irritating.
Sailor Neptune scoffs. “We don’t need to risk any further collateral damage. Leave or don’t, but stay out of our way, and don’t even think of using anything other than your shields.”
Renjun bristles but Sailor Neptune moves past him before he can retort.
Sailor Uranus has summoned his “space sword” and is pressing the Daimon back with forceful swings. Neptune unceremoniously scoops up the cowering conductor and heaves him over his shoulder. It’s clear he intends to deposit him backstage, but before he can, a yelp and a discordant twang ring out from the other side of the stage where Sailor Uranus has been thrown back and into a fallen harp. The instrument strings come loose and wrap around his waist and legs before he can rise.
“Not so fast!” the Daimon yells, and then starts to shriek, the sound starting low and rapidly climbing in pitch. The energy building up is visible, and Renjun sees Neptune balk as he realizes the danger. Before Renjun can step in with a shield, Neptune finishes whatever calculations he’d been making and literally tosses the poor conductor at Renjun. It is, in fact, the first time a human being has been thrown at him, so Renjun thinks he can be excused for failing to actually catch him. Instead, the conductor hits him and they both tumble to the ground. Most of the conductor’s fall is broken by Renjun’s body, but his head does hit the ground with an alarming thud.
Meanwhile, Neptune summons a hand mirror from nowhere. “Submarine Reflection!” He calls out, right as the Daimon’s burst of sonic energy releases and rushes towards him. Instead of wiping him out, the energy rebounds against the mirror and races back at the Daimon, bowling it off its feet. Sailor Uranus is there to meet it, having cut himself out the harp string restraints. He thrusts his sword through the Daimon’s body, and that’s the end of that; the Daimon’s body disburses like mist.
Renjun turns his attention to the now-unconscious conductor on his lap. He’s still breathing, and not visibly bleeding, but before Renjun can examine him any further, Sailor Uranus ducks in and hoists the man into his arms.
Sailor Neptune does a quick check for a pulse, then glares at Renjun. “Seriously? That was the best you could do? We’ll get him to a medic. You’ve done enough here.”
The two stride off without a glance back, and Renjun feels so bitter at the dismissal he can’t even muster a retort.
He ducks backstage and transforms back as soon as the other two are gone. The audience has started to rouse, so he thinks it’s safe to go looking for Jeno and Jaemin. Thank goodness for Jaemin’s weak bladder, he’s glad he didn’t need to worry about their safety during all that. He certainly had enough to worry about with the Neptune- and Uranus- induced aggravation.
“Renjunnie!” Jaemin intercepts him as soon as he exits the double doors back into the lobby and wraps him in a tight hug. Jeno puts a strong arm around them both, ushering them gently out of the way of other folks stumbling out of the concert hall. “Renjun, we were so worried!”
“I’m fine, Jaemin,” Renjun smiles. “Just glad you two are alright.”
“You aren’t hurt, are you?” Jeno frets, pulling Jaemin off of Renjun so he can examine him. He pats down Renjun’s arms and chest as if that would reveal a hidden injury. Renjun grabs his hands and dips in to peck his cheek.
“I mean it, I’m fine! Just a small headache. I think the Sailor Scouts saved us before anything bad could happen.”
“I’m sorry we weren’t there with you, Renjunnie,” Jaemin pouts and Renjun laughs at him.
“And what would you have been able to do, huh? I’m glad you two were safe and out of danger.”
“Let’s get you home, Renjun.” Jeno starts to steer them towards to the parking lot.
“No dinner? What happened to that plan?”
Jeno gives him a weak smile. “You’ve just been through an ordeal; I think maybe rescheduling would be for the best. Hey, what about tomorrow night? I’ll move a study group around if you can make that work?”
Renjun wants to argue, but Jaemin really looks wiped and Jeno looks weary as well. He might be okay shrugging off peril, but his boyfriends are civilians, they’ve probably never been so close to danger before.
“Okay, dinner tomorrow then. Let’s go home.”
☽☽☽
Renjun can’t even convince the two of them to come up to his flat for a cup of coffee or anything, so he spends the rest of the night sulking and watching Donghyuck play Overwatch in the living room. If he were being a responsible Sailor Scout, he would take the opportunity to try to pin down the enemy’s location; they might have gotten sloppy after making a move earlier that night. The thought of running into other Scouts again prevents him from heading out, though. If Uranus and Neptune think they’re so much better suited for this than he is, then they can spend their nights on a goose hunt, see if he cares.
He brings his knees to his chest and curls his arms around himself, tuning out the sounds of animated battle. It isn’t fair. He never asked to be a Sailor Scout, and it’s not like he would have chosen Saturn to be his guardian planet if he had known the connotations and had a choice. All he knows is that he had a dream one night where a regal figure appeared before him and told him he needed to be reborn.
“You are the guardian of life and death. The soldier of silence, destruction, and ruin, but also the catalyst of rebirth. The world needs you now. You will know what to do.” And he had woken with a slowly fading purple symbol on his forehead and answers to questions he never knew he had.
He knew at the time that there were other Scouts, too. They were an open secret of Seoul; no one talked about them openly but whispers and rumors were everywhere. The general consensus was one of minor distaste—sure, they kept the city safe, but the populace couldn’t remember being attacked by monsters so often before the Sailor Scouts had first appeared.
Renjun had thought all the Scouts were a team, but he found out quickly he was wrong about that. Jupiter nearly attacked him when he first ran into him, Moon, and Mars. Moon called his fellow Scout off, but even he wasn’t friendly. Renjun didn’t understand what was wrong, until Mars told him bluntly, “You’re not supposed to be here. Saturn is only born to destroy.”
He explained that his mission was to protect Seoul, same as them, but they would hear none of it. When Renjun dreamed again of the regal figure, he learned what had happened in a previous life; the Sailor Scouts of that time had done all they could to prevent Saturn from being reborn, and when that Saturn was, they nearly destroyed the world. This time was different, the figure
assured him; he was not meant to destroy but to preserve.
It wasn’t much consolation when he realized he would need to do his work alone.
When Donghyuck finally calls it a night, he’s startled to find Renjun still awake on the couch and drags him off to bed. Renjun would usually kick up more of a fuss when his roommate uses him as a body-pillow cuddle substitute, but tonight it’s nice to be reminded that he’s not completely isolated.
☽☽☽
It’s a rainy and dreary day, and Renjun spends most of it wrapping up assignments and planning. It’s too short notice to make reservations at any of the nicer restaurants, but Renjun’s alright with that. He’d prefer something low-key after last evening anyways. There a 24-hour café/diner place near campus he’s spent an awful lot of late nights and productive afternoons at that he’d been meaning to introduce Jeno and Jaemin to, so after a few texts and a pouty selfie, he gets his wish.
He meets up with his boyfriends in the park near campus and is quick to fold up his own umbrella to get under Jeno’s. Jeno’s umbrella is obnoxiously huge for everyday use, but there’s no one around to bump into so it’s fine. It’s still a tight squeeze for three, but Renjun wraps his arm around Jeno’s waist and pokes at Jaemin on the other side, and they’re off.
“I really love this place, I think you guys will as well. Their menu is all over the place but it’s all really good! It’s no fancy French place, but it’s really good, I promise.
Jeno swaps his umbrella to his other hand to tousle Renjun’s hair. “If you like it, I’m sure we’re going to love it too, Renjunnie.”
Between the sound of the rain and Jaemin’s indignant squawking as Jeno’s maneuver leaves him exposed to the water, Renjun doesn’t hear the enemy approach until it’s too late. A blast of energy sends Jeno’s umbrella flying, knocking him back several steps and throwing Renjun and Jaemin to the wet ground. They are soaked in seconds, the chill immediately sinking in.
“Well, well, well,” a deep, feminine voice rings out, and Renjun’s heart sinks. He looks up to meet the gaze of Kaorinite, one of the leaders of the baddies they’ve been fighting for the past few months. She might even be the highest rung in their hierarchy for all he knows; they only met once, and Sailor Moon ended up pulling out all the stops to foil her that time. She hasn’t been seen since, but Renjun knows she’s been continuing to pull strings and send her Daimons after various targets. “Just who I was looking for. Come here, little mouse, let’s make this easy, hm?” She reaches towards him, red polished nails bared like claws.
Jeno and Jaemin jump between them before Renjun can even get to his feet, and oh, that makes everything so much worse.
“Run, Renjun! Get out of here!” Jaemin yells, squaring up like he’s going to fight this evil sorceress with his fists.
“We’ll be right behind you, move!” Jeno takes a second to yank Renjun to his feet before pushing him firmly away.
Kaorinite laughs. “And what have we here? Two little white knights? I only came here for “Renjunnie,” but I’m always in the market for pure heart crystals, how lovely of you to offer.” She brings her arms together and starts to materialize glowing red energy between them.
“No!” Renjun tugs Jeno and Jaemin back. “She wants me, you two need to get out of here, get to safety!”
Jaemin immediately tries to push Renjun aside again, and Renjun can see Kaorinite preparing to take advantage of the opening he’s providing.
He has no other choice. “Saturn Planet Power!” He shouts, and his transformation pen appears in his hand. “Make Up!”
There’s a lot about being a magical boy that Renjun doesn’t fully understand, and the transformation process is at the top of that list. His face doesn’t look any different as Sailor Saturn, but some sort of enchantment keeps people from being able to recognize him despite not wearing a mask. And the transformation process itself freezes time in a strange way, so for the fifteen-to-twenty seconds of his body moving about as his costume materializes around him, he can both plan his next move, and continue to freak out about the fact the two loves of his life now know his biggest secret and are in horrible danger.
As soon as the glow fades and his glaive appears in his hands, he’s stepping forward to deflect Kaorinite’s attack with a Silent Wall. He grits his teeth and focuses his energy into the barrier; her attack is much more powerful than any Daimon’s. “You two need to run,” he pants out, not daring to risk taking his eyes off the enemy. “I promise, I’ll explain later, but I need you two to run.”
Kaorinite lunges forward, hands bright with red energy, and Renjun is quick to parry. He needs to buy time for Jeno and Jaemin to get away, and space to be able to use his powers to the fullest. When you wield power over life and death, you need to make sure there’s no room for potential collateral damage.
“I knew it!” Kaorinite cackles. “Sailor Saturn. You’re the last missing piece I need to revive my master. You ought to just come with me easily, you know. What’s the point of resisting us anyways? Black sheep of the Sailor Scouts that you are. Do you really think that you’re meant to be a hero?”
“Look, lady, I’m not letting you threaten the people in my city. I don’t know what your evil endgame is here, but I’m not going to let you get away with it.”
“I’d say that’s a pity, but this will honestly be much more satisfying after you’ve thwarted so many of my plans. So be it!” She flicks her wrist and a sword of crimson energy appears in her hand. Renjun lashes out with the butt of his glaive, pressing her backwards and forcing her onto the defensive. He’s not sure what that wicked blade can do, but he doesn’t plan to give her a chance to use it.
He manages to disarm her with a successful twist of the glaive’s staff, and braces to begin one of his more powerful attacks as her sword dissipates into mist. He lifts the glaive into the starting formation; a clean diagonal to the ground, the blade pulsating purple energy as he focuses. One clean hit will be enough to end this.
“Silent—” He begins the attack, spinning to gather the right momentum when he sees Jeno and Jaemin, still behind him only a few meters away. Their eyes are wide open, shocked. More importantly, they are far too close for him to safely discharge his strike. He stumbles and wills the gathered energy to fade.
The distraction costs him; the mist returns to Kaorinite’s hand and reforms into the sword, which she slashes at his chest. He manages to twist enough to avoid most of the force of the blow, but it still cuts a long gash through his costume and into his skin. It burns, like no wound he’s ever had before, and he drops to one knee as the pain courses through his body. His glaive falls to the ground, his arms no longer stable enough to hold it.
Kaorinite laughs triumphantly. “Oh, how the mighty fall. Don’t worry, Saturn, the pain will be over soon.” She steps towards him and as hard as Renjun tries he can’t force his body to cooperate. He can only hope desperately that she’ll leave Jeno and Jaemin alone now that she’s gotten what she came for. He wishes he’d had more time with them… enough time to tell them his secrets of his own volition, enough time to tell them he loves them.
“Uranus Planet Power, Make Up!”
“Neptune Planet Power, Make Up!”
Through the haze of the pain, Renjun wonders if he’s hallucinating. Jaemin and Jeno have cried out and are now bathed in shining lights as they draw patterns in the air with transformation pens. Costumes replace the jeans and sweatshirts they’d been wearing. A tiara with a dark green gem appears on Jaemin’s forehead; a matching one with dark blue appears on Jeno’s. The two open their eyes as the lights fade and Renjun feels gutted.
“Space Sword Blaster!” Sailor Uranus’s own sword appears in Jeno’s hand, and with a powerful stride he intercepts Kaorinite where she was bearing down on Renjun, pressing her back with a powerful flurry of blows.
“Deep Submerge!” A huge sphere of water barrels into Kaorinite from where Jaemin, Sailor Neptune, stands, pressing her up against a nearby tree. Jeno dives towards her, clearly intent on finishing her, but Kaorinite has more tricks up her sleeves. She presses her palms together and lashes outwards. One tendril of force picks Jeno up and tosses him meters away though the air and into Jaemin, and they both fall. Kaorinite presses the advantage and brings a heavy force down on the two of them, pressing them into the ground. Renjun hears Jeno yelp as Kaorinite increases the pressure pinning them down.
“You two! I should have known. How coinvent for me, two less to hunt down later. Say your prayers, Sailor Scouts!”
All sensation fades away as Renjun watches Kaorinite slowly saunter towards the two pinned Scouts. All he can feel is the thrumming of his heart, beating so loudly in his chest surely anyone could hear. He rises to his feet, swaying with the effort but determined not to fall. Glaive in position, he begins to focus. He wields the power of ruin and rebirth, decay and rejuvenation. This sorceress cannot threaten the ones he loves without consequence.
Sometimes it feels like preparing an attack stops time just like a transformation sequence does. Kaorinite must surely hear him as he calls out, “Silence Glaive Majestic Reaping!” She does turn towards him as he approaches, but by then it is far too late for her. Renjun swings the blade of his glaive around in an arc, and then slashes it upwards across her torso.
Kaorinite screams for only a second before she is reduced to dust by the attack. Just like that; gone. The rain pounds down and within moments that remaining dust has been washed away. The adrenaline leaves Renjun’s body all at once and the pain breaks through. He crumples, his glaive dropping to the pavement with a loud clatter. Before he can follow suit, he is jerked back upright by firm arms, and he hisses as his wound throbs at the jolting.
“Careful, Jeno!” He can hear Jaemin fret, and Renjun feels his mouth pull up into a weak smile unbidden.
“We need to get him somewhere safe,” Jeno’s voice rumbles pleasantly where Renjun’s ear is pressed against his chest, and his last thought before passing out is how grateful he is to have another chance to hear that lovely timbre.
☽☽☽
Renjun has been in Jeno and Jaemin’s dorm only a few times before; it’s so much smaller than Renjun’s flat that they only end up there Renjun needed to get away from Donghyuck. When Renjun comes to lying on the crappy loveseat that Jaemin wedged between his and Jeno’s desks, he is understandably disoriented.
Jeno and Jaemin are sitting on top of the bed (technically beds; they pushed their single mattresses together on one side of the room when they moved in), and Jeno nearly falls off when he notices Renjun looking around blearily. He hops down with little grace and shoves a water bottle into Renjun’s hands.
“Drink up, Renjunnie, you’ve been out of it for a while.”
Renjun drinks until the bottle is mostly empty. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was, but he could honestly go for a meal too. He feels completely drained—no pain though. He slips a finger under his collar to peek at his chest; no wound to be seen.
“The gash healed up after you transformed back,” Jeno informs him, smoothing down his shirt. “I think the magic bit must have lost its power once you killed Kaorinite. I’m no doctor, but I think you’re going to be fine.”
“What about you guys?” Renjun grasps Jeno’s shoulder to pull him closer, and the other boy leans in as bidden. Renjun traces his fingers over Jeno’s face but doesn’t see any injury. Just troubled eyes. He reaches towards Jaemin intent on examining him the same way.
Jaemin catches his hands and squeezes them before letting them drop. “Renjunnie… I think we need to talk.”
Renjun sighs and grasps at the back of the couch to help him sit upright. “You’re right. I guess it’s kind of funny though, that we were hiding the same secret from each other? We’re all Sailor Scouts, what are the odds?”
“You’re… you’re not just any other Scout, though,” Jeno interjects timidly and a sting of hurt flares through Renjun’s chest.
“Oh, of course, not. I’m Sailor Saturn, the “bad” one, right?” He laughs darkly. “I’m a Sailor Scout just the same as you. It’s not like I asked to be reborn with this mission. Did either of you? I’m here because fate decided it was necessary for me to be here. It’s not my fault fate decided that I should be stronger than you lot, either.”
“I— you’re not stronger than us!” Jaemin sputters.
“Aren’t you and the other Scouts freaking out about me for being able to end the world if that was necessary, since you wouldn’t be able to stop me? My ‘doomsday button’ makes you treat me like a threat, when I’m just trying to keep the peace the same as the rest of you. Sailor Moon can do some wild things too, you know, but no, all he gets is reverence.”
Jeno snorts mildly. “I don’t know if reverence is quite the right word for what we give—Moon, what we give Sailor Moon.”
“I guess I wouldn’t know, since none of you let me close enough to see that side.”
“Renjunnie…” Jaemin trails off, at loss for words. Jeno slides onto the sofa next to Renjun and clasps one of his hands.
“We knew so little about Saturn, Renjunnie… we only had the impressions of our past lives to fall back on, and they… don’t have much good to say. You know, in our last incarnations, Uranus and Neptune were meant to prevent Saturn’s awakening altogether? They failed at that, and it almost cost them everything. Jaemin and I… we just wanted to avoid the mistakes the past.”
Renjun pulls his hand from Jeno’s grip. “I’m not a mistake, though. If we’d been working together from the start, we probably could have stopped Kaorinite ages ago. It’s been so hard trying to do recon and fighting by myself on top of my studies, you know.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Renjun. I feel like I don’t know what to think,” Jaemin sighs and tries to squeeze himself onto the loveseat on Renjun’s other side but seems to reconsider at Renjun’s sharp look. He sits cross-legged on the ground in front of him instead.
“Jaemin, you know me. Regardless of my abilities, do you really think I would just, irresponsibly end the world? I have plans for my future, and friends and family to worry about, and… you guys.”
“Of course, Renjun, we know that, I don’t think that’s what Jaemin meant.” Jeno slides an arm around Renjun’s shoulders, and despite his irritation, Renjun lets him. “You’re right. We’re just in shock, I guess. You—Saturn—are really not what we were expecting.” He presses Renjun against his side more tightly. “And I’m sorry about that. You’re right, we should have given you the benefit of the doubt.”
“I’m sorry too!” Jaemin slides up onto his knees and lays his head on Renjun’s lap, shooting him a baleful look. Renjun flicks his nose in annoyance but lets him stay there, smoothing his fingers through Jaemin’s hair. “It must have been hard doing the Sailor Scout stuff alone. Me and Jeno awoke as Scouts together, you know? I think Moon and maybe Pluto were the only other ones who went through that alone, and Moon had Luna so maybe that doesn’t count. You’ve been working so hard Renjunnie, and you saved our lives today. And many more lives, probably, now that Kaorinite is gone. You did so well.”
“You really are amazing, Renjun.” Jeno presses a kiss to his forehead. “And we’ll make sure the other Scouts get that too. You’ve fought alone for long enough. Would you be able to bring yourself to forgive us? You could team up with us. Jaemin and I mostly do our own thing, so it would be cool if you wanted to stick with us, but we’re on okay terms with the other Scouts, we can definitely introduce you. Would you want to?”
Renjun will absolutely blame the stress of the day coupled with the puppy dog eyes both his boyfriends are giving him for why he bursts into tears. That’s all he’s wanted since he got thrust into this world of magic and monsters. Jeno makes a soothing sound and presses Renjun’s face into his shoulder. When Jaemin makes to wedge himself onto the couch on Renjun’s other side, this time he lets him, and is rewarded with a warm back hug as Jaemin loops his arms around his waist.
He cries himself out after a few minutes of being cuddled and rocked but stays in their embraces for a while longer. Once he pulls back, he clears his throat. “I’d say you two probably have a little more groveling to do before you earn my forgiveness, but that would be one important part.” He gives first Jeno, then Jaemin a quick peck on the lips, then stands and stretches his hands over his heads, twisting his neck back and forth to relieve some of the tension in his muscles. “You’re welcome to start making it up to me anytime now. Feel free to get creative.”
Jeno and Jaemin need no further invitation, and so begins a wonderful tradition to celebrate the defeat of another enemy. Together, they have many more to come.