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Tuxedo Mask had shown up to dozens of Youma battles. He had long ago sunk into the routine of waiting in the wings, carefully gauging when an interruption from him was most needed.
After the first few months, his cardiovascular system had acclimated to the new strain; his heart rate barely increased from the moment he was called to transform through a daring last-second rescue of Sailor Moon and even after leaving the victorious Senshi behind with nary a word. Like working on the hospital floor, it had become rote – habitual. Nothing to stress about, as everything was under control.
But now, his heart was in his throat.
You see, this monster of the week had set up shop two doors down from the bunny cafe where Tsukino Usagi worked.
It might have been fine. After all, he’d already been in the area – he often found himself visiting the bunny cafe on his days off, though he’d never admit to any intentionality involved out loud – and Usagi’s shift wasn’t due to end for another couple of hours. When the youma had tripped his Dark-Kingdom-nonsense-detection senses as he made his way to the cafe, he’d had time to transform, to improvise a plan. He and the Senshi should have been able to eliminate the threat with Usagi none the wiser.
Until, right as the youma shed her mild-mannered shopkeeper disguise and threw Tuxedo Mask through her shop window, Usagi barrelled out of the bunny cafe and into the street.
In typical Usagi fashion, she had shouted something indignant about how the youma was abusing handsome men and taking advantage of innocent people who just wanted to have a nice day shopping. She’d even stomped her foot.
It might have been cute, if she hadn’t been in so much danger.
With a throaty chuckle, the youma advanced on Usagi, fingers lengthening into knife-sharp spears.
“Run!” Tuxedo Mask bellowed, pushing himself up off the ground.
But instead, Usagi stood her ground, spine rigid and a fist in front of her chest.
Why wasn’t she running??
He launched himself at her – but too late, wrong angle; he hadn’t been prepared for this .
The youma’s claws raked Usagi’s side, tossing her into the cobbles of the street like a child might toss aside a disfavored toy.
Her scream of agony would haunt him until his dying day.
He landed a half-meter away, a half-second too late.
“Hey!” he cried, trying to draw the monster’s attention to no avail. The youma continued her slow advance on Usagi.
Where the hell were the Senshi?!?
With help nowhere to be found, Tuxedo Mask did the only thing he could think of – he hurled his own body between the monster and Usagi.
Deep inside him pounded a primal urge, the knowledge that no matter what, he must protect her.
He threw his arm above his head – as if the youma were a bear and he could frighten her away by making himself bigger. An unfamiliar cry burst from his lips: “Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber!”
With it, a silver-grey blast of warm, tingling, frankly uncomfortable energy exploded from his body through his hand, arcing through the air again and again until it swirled directly into the youma’s open mouth.
With a belching screech, the youma clawed at her chest, her throat. Shrieks turning ear-piercing, the monster’s skin began to bubble.
After another few moments of screaming – of ripping her own throat open – the youma crumbled into nothing but dust.
Huh. He’d had no idea he could do that.
Shaking off this shocking new revelation for more careful examination at another, less urgent time, he dove instead for the crumpled young woman laying still in the street.
Oh god, don’t be dead. Please, you can’t be dead.
“Usagi?” he gasped, fingers urgently prodding her extremities, checking for a twitch, any kind of reaction.
“Five more minutes,” she mumbled, and he nearly sobbed with relief.
“Once we get you to the hospital, you can sleep as long as you like,” he promised. “Just stay awake long enough for me to make sure you’re safe to move, all right?”
“’m okay,” she said as he removed his glove and pinched the palm of her left hand.
“Ouch!” She slapped his hand away with hers. “What’re you doing?”
“Assessing for spinal cord injury.”
“I’m fiiiiine,” she insisted, pushing herself up into a seated position before he could even protest.
“No, you’re really not.” Now that she was upright, he could see that the entire right side of her torso was stained burgundy – even without the massive gash torn into the side, the pink strawberry dress she was wearing was certainly ruined. “I need to take you to the hospital.”
“Nah,” She waved a hand almost drunkenly. “I heal fast.”
“At least let me bandage you,” he insisted, gritting his teeth at her nonchalance.
She squinted at him. “I can bandage myself, thank you. I have lots of practice.”
He didn’t doubt that. “I’m sure you can. But I’m a doctor, and I’ll feel a lot better if you let me take care of you.”
“A doctor, huh?” She managed to somehow stumble in her seated position, catching her balance with one arm before she fell. “How come everyone’s a doctor lately?”
“Who all is a doctor?” he said patiently, shrugging off his cape and beginning to rip it into large swaths of cloth.
“ You are,” she said, and he sighed.
“Yes, we established that,” he said, leaning in close to try to get a good view of her wound. “Lift up your arm.”
“Bossy, you’re bossy,” she declared, jabbing her finger in the general direction of his henshin’s medals.
“And you’re losing a lot of blood,” he countered, attempting to bundle her into his arms so he could rush her to the nearest hospital. “You need a transfusion.”
She shook her head and he suppressed a growl, grabbing up one of the pieces of cloth that used to be his cape. Stupid ethical principles, allowing patients to refuse treatment.
“Your arm, please?”
She rolled her eyes but raised her arm. “Owwww,” she whined, instinctively lowering her elbow when the pressure strained her injury.
Gently, he held up her arm with one hand as he pressed the makeshift bundle of gauze against her side, doing his best to staunch the bleeding. “Usagi, you need stitches. And a transfusion. You need to let me take you to a hospital.”
He glanced up at her face, but her eyes were staring into the distance, attention wholly elsewhere. “He’s bossy, too,” she remarked.
“Who is?”
“ And he’s a doctor.”
“I’m not following, Usagi,” he said with a shake of his head, putting as much pressure as he could manage on the wound without hurting her.
“But you seem worried about me, and I don’t think he would be.” She lowered her voice. “See, he kind of hates me.”
He had no idea who she was talking about, but nonetheless he was pretty sure that such a thing was not possible. “I doubt that,” he said instead.
Her eyes stared deep into his, crystal blue and full of uncertainty. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me, that I like someone who hates me?”
Deep in his stomach, something twisted. Usagi liked someone. And the guy was clearly a total idiot, if he didn’t realize what he had.
But he pushed away the unexpected jolt of pain; this wasn’t the time to grapple with it. Not when Usagi needed urgent medical attention.
“Usagi,” he said, as patiently as he could manage given the intense stress of the situation. “You’re delirious. Can I please take you to the hospital?”
Her chin shook side-to-side again. “W-what if he’s there?” she said in a small voice, shoulders hunching in on themselves. “What if he’s there and he doesn’t want to see me?”
“I don’t think bleeding out to spite him is the answer,” he muttered, watching her mouth pull into a wince as he very carefully peeled back the piece of tattered cape against her side. At least the bleeding had mostly stopped.
Her shoulders shrugged up towards her ears. “I don’t want him to think I’m more of a nuisance than he already does, you know? He’s so smart and mature, and I work at a bunny cafe where he comes sometimes when his neighborhood coffee shop is closed for renovations.”
Why did that… Hadn’t he used a similar excuse the first time she’d asked him what brought him in today?
Dismissing the coincidence as unimportant, he instead caught her fluttering hand and pressed two fingers to the inside of her wrist. “What kind of guy would think you’re a nuisance for needing medical attention? Usagi, you were attacked by a monster.”
“Yeah,” she blew out a breath as he counted her worrisomely slow heartbeats. “Should’ve dodged faster.”
“Or sought proper medical attention faster,” he countered. “Your pulse is sluggish and your lips are starting to turn grey. If you don’t agree to let me take you to the hospital soon, you’re going to pass out and then I’ll take you there anyway.”
Squinching up her pallid face, she shook her head. “Okay, fine, Doctor Tuxedo Mask. You win, take me to the hospital. Just… not Hiroo?”
Exhaling a massive sigh of relief, he swept her into his arms.
Vaulting into the air, he oriented himself towards the nearest hospital – which wasn’t Hiroo, Usagi’s bunny cafe was nowhere near the hospital where he worked – doing his best to ignore the distracting sensation of Usagi’s small hand pressing on his sternum.
Or, even more distracting, the feel of her cheek resting against his throat.
“We’ll be there soon,” he reassured her (and himself), “Just hold on.”
“You smell good,” she informed him muzzily. “Like roses and sandalwood. Like Mamoru.”
His spine went rigid.
Of all the…
“Wh-what a strange coincidence,” he stuttered out, relieved to see Yoyogi Hospital come into view along the skyline.
“If you’re a doctor… Do you work with Mamoru at all? Does he ever talk about me?”
“There are a lot of hospitals in Tokyo,” he hedged, focusing his attention on crossing the remaining kilometer or so to the clinic. “The odds of any two doctors knowing each other isn’t very high.”
“Yeah… plus, he wouldn’t,” she said, voice faint. “He hates me.”
“Who could…” He shook his head. “He doesn’t. Trust me.”
She didn’t reply.
Tilting his chin down, he took in her face; her eyelids were fluttering. Her hand fell away from his chest.
Inside his chest, his heart plummeted.
“Stay with me, Usagi,” he snatched up her hand, squeezing her palm with his. “Stay with me!”
Feet slamming against the pavement, he rushed at the entry doors, ready to kick them in if he had to. But they swished open for him without even a pause.
“ Help! ” he bellowed as he entered the lobby. “She’s got a deep lateral laceration—active arterial bleed! Blood pressure's dropping—we need trauma surgery!”
Heads whipped up, and a team of nurses descended on him. It was a blur of questions, his arms left empty and blood-stained as the nurses moved Usagi onto a gurney.
He must have answered the questions satisfactorily, because after another moment or two they were taking Usagi away from him, pushing the gurney through a set of swinging doors and into the exam area.
Straining his neck, he watched through the small windows in the doors as a nurse hurriedly began administering a blood transfusion. Another nurse was standing next to the gurney talking with Usagi – they’d managed to wake her up, and were now clearly fighting to keep her conscious – as another nurse began cutting her out of her strawberry dress so the doctor could properly examine the gashes in her side.
Averting his eyes to allow her a modicum of privacy, he exhaled a breath.
A rush of exhaustion pummeled over him as the adrenaline faded; taking a few steps, he half-collapsed into a waiting room chair.
Usagi would be okay, he reassured himself. She was awake. She was in capable hands. She would make a full recovery. She wasn’t going to die.
The very idea of her dying made his skin feel like it was going to fly off. Like the world wouldn’t fit him anymore if she ceased to be in it.
He’d always known he enjoyed seeing her – that it brightened his day when she crashed into him on street corners or even the rare occasions when she somehow managed to kick her shoes onto his head. It was the reason why he didn’t mind going out to Shibuya to have a coffee and pet some bunnies whenever it had been a few weeks since he’d last run into her. Because whenever he arrived at the cafe, she would smile at him in that way that made his stomach squeeze and his face warm.
Because he liked her .
The thought struck him with startling clarity.
Of course he liked her. How had he ever missed it?
And now…
Raising his head, he stared again at the closed doors between the waiting room and the hospital ward – the doors behind which Tsukino Usagi was either living or dying.
As if answering his thoughts, the doors swung open and a nurse in bloodstained pink scrubs emerged.
Rising to his feet, throat dry, he stumbled over his question – “Is she-?”
Through the roaring in his ears, he heard the nurse’s explanations – she was stable. She needed to stay overnight, but she would make a full recovery. She was awake and eating something now to help stabilize her blood sugar – did he want to come back and see her?
Shaking his head, he fell trembling back into the hard plastic seat.
She was awake and eating. She would be okay. He wasn’t going to lose her now that he’d just finally realized what she meant to him.
Secure in that knowledge, he finally had room to think about other things.
Like the fact that Usagi liked someone.
That Usagi liked someone who, from the various details she’d let slip in her delirium, sounded an awful – an awful – lot like him.
And she would never say anything about it because she thought he hated her.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Now the question was, next time he saw her, what could he do to convince her of that?