Scene #2678: The Lone Red Name

Owner	Pose
Mamoru Chiba	He could have texted. As is usually the case, Mamoru instead shows up at Nephrite's door in person instead, late in the day, wearing a sleeveless Hi-Standard t-shirt, prescription sunglasses indoors oh they're lightening he just came inside, cargo shorts, and his velcro strap sandals. He's sucking on a Silver Crystal lollipop and he's got a sturdy backpack on. When Masato opens the apartment door, he asks with a brilliant smile, "You busy? I'm going to visit my parents."
Nephrite	Masato sipped at his can of sparkling citrus, parsing that. "Oh? Just going to check in about everything?" A lot had happened, after all, there was probably some updates and gratitude to be expressed there. The preparedness and the smile and the sugar and the backpack had him nodding. He was, himself, clearly not engaged in anything important, and mostly dressed in branded athletic wear. He wandered a little, over towards his living room-- towards both a Chinese Oak bonsai and a high kamidana. "You want to take the Ferrari or Magic?"
Mamoru Chiba	"Magic," Mamoru says, stepping in and out of the way of the door. "I got ''married'', Masato," he laughs, spreading his hands out wide. "I haven't told them yet. I..." his smile falters a little but stays present, "I haven't made up my mind what to do about names yet. I want to talk it out in front of them, kind of, and-- you understand big names. Talk it out in front of you too..." His eyes follow Nephrite's line of motion to his logical conclusion, and land on the shelf. "And I have to... change out the roses, and... damn! What was the other-- oh, I need to apologise for dragging them into my breakup."
Nephrite	He grinned to himself when Mamoru mentioned again-- in that very proud way he had been doing-- that he was married. Of course, of course. He was already opening up a small drawer to take out some incense and mochi he'd kept aside for offerings. He had bought out Nounamu's entire broken cabinet's worth of sweets, the month previous, and while most of them had been given away and shared and eaten by others, Masato was more pragmatic about his share. There's a short, knowing laugh to that bit about the break-up though. "You couldn't have picked a better place to that?" No, of course not. Masato had been mildly concerned about Tamaki at the time, but now he really just found it amusing. He shook his head. Nobody could claim the Chibas were not well informed of their son's life. "Names... I know what you mean," he passed the packet of mochi to him to hold, stepping back around him towards the entrance again to pull on some shoes, "It's tricky business." He held out his free hand as he stood.
Mamoru Chiba	Eyebrows up. "You giving me a lift?" Mamoru asks with a laugh and takes Masato's hand, letting his awareness of the location and its distance and appearance bloom through their handclasp. "I ''can'' tele--" "--port," he finishes as they step forward into the cemetery, right where Mamoru was thinking of, which is like... right in front of the family stone. He whips his head around, but the only other people there are facing the other way and a bit away from them. So he squeezes Masato's hand and lets go, then gets down on one knee and slings his backpack off. The first thing he does is take the two perfect roses out of the flower holder and jam them stem-first into the ground next to the stone. "When I was little," he says, "I didn't like the rituals. I like them now, but... I wanted to meet them, I wanted to know them, I wanted to talk to them and hear them talk back, and it wasn't fair that other people had ghosts and they couldn't even see them, and I could see them and didn't have any."
Nephrite	Yes, but Masato can teleport too, and very soon-- with every passing day-- he gets closer to his eighteenth birthday. He doesn't know when the morning will come that he can no longer do something, after that; appearing like this in a small galaxy of stars. But what he says, with a slight smirk and a whisper, is-- "Maybe I just want to show off a little, so that your parents think I'm interesting?" He doesn't let those thoughts linger, sapphire eyes settling upon the stone and he bows to it-- and them-- politely. Tracing the kanji. Eighteen strokes, in Chiba; thirty three with Mamoru. A winning number, of higher luck. Better luck than he has had, Masato supposes, but also an honourable name that attracts a lot of assistance from others and predicts a soreness at losses. He starts casually taking incense from the packet, and hums. "I like the rituals, too. But I always did... having rules about these things to follow was always a little comforting. It was only time I knew I was being a good enough son, with certainty." He glanced to Mamoru. "You didn't get to keep anything of your memories from when they were here. That's not an easy thing."
Mamoru Chiba	"No... and I don't know what happened to all their things," says Mamoru, "except for a pocket watch and a musical locket, and a photo I'm not even in. Turns out the pocket watch is my henshin device..." He looks up at Neph and he's smiling, but it's a fragile smile, wavering. The names beyond Mamoru's, Hinata and Chiyoko. The names beyond theirs, ... Mamoru's is the only one in red. "I'm the last, and I didn't like the rituals because-- I guess because they worked." Mamoru sits on his heels, reaches to pour water for them, takes out two new roses and carefully puts them in the holder, takes out his own incense and glances up at Neph, then edges over to make more room in case the other boy wants to sit too. "I'm sorry for dragging you into my breakup and then not even giving you the update on that. I got married! Not to Jadeite, but to Usagi-- I didn't want to wait all the way until my birthday to tell you. This is Masato Sanjouin, he's very dear to my heart, he's one of the guardians I told you about last year."
Nephrite	Masato remembered the first time he learned about that pocket watch-- at a time when Kazuo had been safeguarding it for Hematite, and gone galavanting as his own tuxedo'd brand of kamen. The thought brought a tiny smile to his features, given Masato's own developped impersonation for doubling, and a clear head with which to review that nostalgia with more positivity. But, that it had belonged to Mamoru's parents, originally, and been left to him... The lone red name. As he moved to sit with his friend, he quietly set about lighting a stick of incense for him. Listening to him talk and address his parents. "No, not to Jadeite, thank the stars..." He chuckled to echo, and nodded as if he were only across a table from them. "It's good to be introduced to you, at last. I've done my best to look out for your son... despite how we might get ourselves get into trouble sometimes for fun. But we're young still, so I hope you don't mind. He's very special to me."
Mamoru Chiba	"And even if I do things like--" Mamoru leans into Masato with a soundless but palpable impact, whumph "--this, he is not special to me in ''the same way'' as Kazuo. He's dating Mako-chan, who I also told you about last time-- oh no I haven't even told them about the ''building'', I got our lawyers to work up a new trust and bought an apartment build-- no, ''married'', I don't want to use words to tell you I want to ''show'' you, we got married on the ''moon''--" He is still leaning against Masato, and that means Masato can feel the tension as well as hear the frustrated grief in Mamoru's voice. He sits back up and huffs out a breath as he takes off his glasses, as he dashes at his eyes with the back of his wrist for a silent hot miserable second, and as the sun beats down on them. The trees are in the wrong direction to shade them, and the sun hasn't set yet. They'll be a bit burnt: the lying breeze smells of the ocean and feels cool... They're alone in the cemetery. Mamoru sighs, and shifts around on the warm ground to sit crosslegged and take out a bag of chocolate taiyaki. "This isn't dinner. I ate dinner. Don't worry," he says, and it's unclear ''to whom'', but after he takes one out, he offers the bag to Neph. "I'll catch them up to everything on our once-more-usual annual visit," he says, "and maybe the smoke does bring my love to wherever their souls are. I wish I knew what they knew..." Mamoru shakes his head. "Anyway, I think I have a greater duty to the living than the dead, and it would-- it obviously-- Chibiusa-chan's name is Usagi ''Tsukino'', they were the Tsukinos before the apocalypse. King Endymion obviously made that choice. It is in all ways the logical choice, the practical one, the kind one, and the humble one. So either I'm wrestling with pride or with still wanting to be Earth Protector."
Nephrite	Yes. Special in a way that was unique to them, Masato thought. Something deeply affectionate and steadying, that came with a natural ease and an abundance of good humour and physical grounding. It was the opposite of the loneliness of his childhood. It was a bond that ran through the core of him, one that he was grateful for and one he doubted much of anything could actually break no matter how life unfolded from here. But life did unfold, and time stopped for nobody, and Mamoru had so many things hapening in his. The counter lean, steady like a pillar, propped the other boy as he tried very hard to untangle it all-- thread from the spool-- to relay any of what he wants people who are not alive to know. That is to say absolutely nothing of the ancient mother, and the echo of that life and memory as well, that seems in Nephrite's memory to be a unseen undercurrent. It adds to the drawing current of grief that Mamoru must know. The cicadas are loud and the sun is warm, and precious salt-- ever comforting-- is tasted on the gentle wind. The taiyaki bag is taken, guarded, but he doesn't take one out. "I'd like to think that they know. If we can carry a heart through rebirth, then I believe the love of the living can reach the dead. Whether we're dutiful or not." He notes truthfully, "And Tsukino Mamoru... it's a fine name. It's a bright name, and full of care. It's the name of a calm, smart, and flexible man, who makes the best of good or bad." Sapphire eyes slid sidewards. "But it is less lucky. Mamoru Chiba is a strong name that puts out a challenge. It's an honourable name to keep, and one that acknowledges that advancement and power... leadership... these things should come from honest expression of self, and the confidence to keep looking and moving forward. It's also the name that brought you so much assistance from others."
Mamoru Chiba	That's not a happy chuff-laugh, but it ''is'' an amused one. "Aren't you supposed to figure out a way to make the decision easier for me, o advisor wise and noble?" Little arm-bump. Arm-bump of muted contact: yes, the grief is vast; yes he is actually in counseling for it even if he can't explain that he grieves also for another mother, for a kingdom from before the end of the Pleistocene, for an empire, for the past's future that could have been, for all of them before the enormous sunspots-- Little, though, it's over fast. "It's also just a name. Nothing will ever change the fact that I am Endymion, who was king of the end of the world." He's not looking at Neph and he's not eating the taiyaki in his hands. He breaks off a piece of it without any chocolate on it and leans forward almost mechanically to put it on the edge of the stone container for the water. "Maybe they let me have the last drop of coffee," he says with the smallest sigh, failing to signal that he's switching eras.
Nephrite	It's not unwelcome, strange as that may be to say-- the confirmation that washes through him. The deep well of feeling, and loss, and of things interrupted. It gives him pause for a second, because he has to weather it. Not endure it, but hold it for a moment-- feel it echo through his chest. His own grief exists with his parents, living and dead, in such a starkly different way. Mamoru's glasses his eyes, and Masato swallows against the sharpness it leaves in his throat. "Maybe they were the type to make you put on a jacket you didn't like, whenever you left the house. Even if it wasn't very cold." Masato takes a piece of the sweets he brought as well, and places it in gentle offering. As he does this, he muses on the names again. "I decided that I would take on the name Kino, when it comes to that, you know." He doesn't elaborate too much, because the significance of where they are and the subject at hand offer their own context as to why. "There's a part of me that thinks... I don't care what happened elsewhere. Here and now, you're Chiba Mamoru in name and nature. And you're going to be your own man, in your own future. You don't have to be a Tsukino, and you don't have to make the same choices King Endymion did. And Usagi-chan..." Masato thinks back to the conversation he had with her, in that palace garden of the alt-future. "I don't think she'd see that as prideful. I think she'd understand."
Mamoru Chiba	It's definitely a deep well and-- it was fleeting but left echoes. Mamoru's still rallying, still pulling himself together -- he listens to Masato while he eats his chocolate filled pastry fish. He's slightly vicious about his bites, maybe. "Maybe they were," he murmurs, looking at the stone. "Maybe it was green." He takes another bite, listening, then-- "But we have to have the same family name!" Mamoru says tragically, slumping allll the way forward over his lap (and holding the taiyaki away from the ground). "And I'm only allowed to be married to one person at a time, legally, you kn--" Mamoru pauses, frowning. "Actually-- that's a good point. If I get to also marry Kazuo, it won't be legally, so I can keep my name illegally too! But Chibiusa-chan's future counterpart-- and any other kids we might have-- should be on Usa-ko's koseki. That's the whole thing. That's why it would-- oh." The prince looks up at Masato, painted gold-orange by the sun setting behind them, half his face in shadow and half in light. The cicadas are loud, and for the moment, the breeze is still. The scent of the baking earth momentarily pushes back the salt air. "That's why I'm so reluctant, though. I did have to fight to get my name back. But now it's mine and I can do what I want with it. I just..." He shakes his head, and the tips-- dyed red now-- are vivid in the golden light. "Maybe I'll get the need out of my system by the time we're old enough it can actually be on the table. Because I know why he did it, and it was because it was necessary. Maybe by the time we can approach her mother with wedding plans... but I think it would make her family so happy, and I ''want'' to make them happy, I want a family to make happy--"
Nephrite	"You'll make them happy in a thousand ways, anyway," Masato snorts faintly, as if that was never in question, "I'm pretty sure they'll still think of you as their family and as a son, no matter what name you have or who gets registered to whose koseki. They're good people." He lets his attention trace the other boy's features, half shade and half illuminated, and knows that this is the nature of Mamoru's life. Things hidden and revealed, things unknown and learned. Warmth and optimism, matched by coldness and sorrow. A path walked in light and in darkness. A duality made of two lives, identities past and present. "And you deserve to keep your name. If you choose to take a different one, that's okay too. But your name-- the name you have right now-- is truly yours, and it suits you. You can have a happy family and keep it, too." A short nod. "But you're right. Either way... you'll be the proud bearer of it for a little longer, yet."
Mamoru Chiba	"I am very different from him," says Mamoru, looking at his half-eaten pastry fish. The breeze comes back faintly, not enough to fix the heat but enough to tease, enough to play with their hair a little. Fingertips rest against the warm stone as Mamoru leans forward over his lap to touch it, and he's silent, listening to the world and 'listening' to it as well, eyes closed and breath careful; he's incredibly still, and the gold surrounding those fingertips is nearly lost in the pinkening gold of the setting sun. "And at the same time, on a level important to Chibiusa-chan and this planet, we are the same," he murmurs. "We'll both look to what helps those around us first, even to our detriment. So thank you for encouraging me to be a little selfish sometimes." When he looks to Masato at the end of that, the glow is fading from his fingertips and his eyes are still focusing. He gives the other boy a crooked smile. "Is it weird that I like making sure their boxes are all in there? When they're strangers, all of them, strangers with my blood. I've seen pictures of my parents, but I don't have any photo albums or anything, and against all odds literally no one in my family was on social media. If I couldn't check to make sure the boxes were there, I'd wonder if they existed at all. I did, when I was a kid. I could visit once a year. Then I forgot when I forgot everything else and thought I'd been in stasis for ten thousand years for fucking up." Mamoru laughs, because of course he does. He sniffs, because of course he does, and he laughs again as he's looking away, and it sounds damp. "It really is funny, like, objectively ha ha funny in a real-- no I'm trying to find a way it's funny, and the only thing is just dramatic irony. I don't know where we lived, I haven't looked up the address because I'm not about to stalk whoever lives there now, you know?"
Nephrite	"It's not weird at all, to look for something... ''tangible''. It's real and undeniable proof of the reality of things, after all. A fact of the past. It's not a lie or a trick or a mistake. It's not much, but it's a link back to something that was real." Masato just shakes his head in a small way, turning his gaze again to the names engraved upon the stone. "For people like us especially, with our history... that's more important than most people are ever going to really understand. Trying to explain it... we'd come across as completely cracked or paranoid." He laughed faintly, in a slightly cynical way. It was at his own expense, really, but he moved on. "But, yes... it's better not to become that strange guy who goes around looking in windows. People will think you're some kind of thief." There's the tiniest smirk to that, the smallest crumb of a joke, but it's only that as he softens. He brings a hand to Mamoru's back, patting and letting it rest there. "You are different. That's not a bad thing." He reiterates. "That might just be better."
Mamoru Chiba	"Some kind of thief who goes on Clock App to look for the thing he's trying to steal..." laughs Mamoru, swaying slightly towards Masato for a moment, like as if the pat were a push he was pushing back on. He's clearly thinking about what Neph just said, about what he's been saying. He slides Masato a sideways smile again. "Definitely better from Hinoiri-chan's point of view. She apparently had a negative social interaction with King Endymion that was bad enough that she had to come to me later and ask if we were actually friends."
Nephrite	Masato does laugh more obviously at that. "You put up with a lot of bullshit from people, you know. You really do take people as they come..." A hum. "You're a sociable bastard, for an introvert." But, thinking on interactions with King Endymion, he remembers the pinch as well. "Maybe I'm a little biased, but I like you best as Chiba Mamoru. And I know how it's going to sound, because of... everything. But it's not the Nephrite in me that doesn't want you to become Tsukino Mamoru." His fingers drum against the other's back. "I'm not going to be pissed off if you do. But 'Chiba Mamoru' is not just a sum of parts, or something transitional. That's my best friend's name. That's your most precious name of any of them."
Mamoru Chiba	"It's their name that they gave me, along with a watch and a locket and more money than I know what to do with. It's a meaningful name, it's what you said a lucky name-- but it means the same thing as what I'm ''for''. I think-- I think I'm going to have to get okay with it and then ask Usagi, because it's the kind of decision we need to make together. But yeah, I ''do'' want to keep my name. It's ''as precious as'' Endymion, which I also had to fight for and hide," he says, then looks at his taiyaki again and turns it around and around in his hands, and the sky's brilliant colors over the trees to the west, and the two of them are rosy from the light now, and the world is still, holding its breath. Mamoru watches the sky, watches the colors changing slowly. "People exhaust me, but I can deal with them one at a time without too much stress. And I like them. I like them even though by all rights I probably shouldn't, given where I grew up and how much people like things they don't understand." Then he looks at Masato and his expression is ''so'' wry. "Women go through this all the time. The Dalai Lama and the Pope change their names. People change their names for a lot of reasons, and sometimes pronouns too, and I'm not changing my pronouns." A beat. "Unless I'm a girl at the time."
Nephrite	Masato quietly thought that perhaps, he himself thought 'Chiba Mamoru' was the most precious because it was the most present, and yet also the least enjoyed-- the least remembered. The one needing the most attention, in some ways. But he didn't voice this much. He smiles at the other boy knowingly when he says people exhaust him, but he likes them. In a different way, Masato feels that too. But his brows rise for the next. "I changed mine, after Obsidan... well, the spelling of it, anyway. Not just for the stroke fortune, but to feel less like I'm just following my father. Now, it feels like mine, like it's actually about me." Indeed, he was named for the man-- Masahiro, Masato. "So, I understand the transformative aspect. I still worry a lot about what sort of things people associate with the name 'Nephrite', but I'm doing my best to wear it in a way that... reminds people of good things. I want to live up to it, and it's title." A beat, as well. "You do look very pretty as a girl. You could say all sorts of very cute things and get away with them."
Mamoru Chiba	Maybe Masato likes the name because its cracks have been wired together, repaired, and could be covered in gold and polished, given a bit more time and solidity. It's been through a lot. "I like your name. I like both your names." There's a pause, and Mamoru looks up again, blinking at Masato as the sun vanishes and the first of the evening stars grow brighter. In a moment, the fireflies will be out. The cicadas are loud, and the emptiness of the cemetery isn't lonely, it's too full of the sounds and scents of summer, the baking grass and stone, the dried earth, the salt air... Mamoru has finished his pastry fish. He wipes his hands off on his shorts, crumbs falling to the ground, and then he hugs his knees, ankles still crossed. "Do you remember your name from before you were Nephrite? I never knew it and it always made me mad." He drops his knees and lifts his hands to lace fingers below his chin and tilt his head and bat his eyes coquettishly. "All kinds of cute things, you say? I'm very pretty ''now'', you know."
Nephrite	"Well, yeah. But you already told your parents I was dating Mako-chan, so I probably shouldn't focussing on too much on your good looks." Masato laughs easily at that, playful. "Wouldn't want them to think I'm a terrible flirt, or anything." He's comforted by the salt air and the gentle veil of night and her first stars. Sapphire eyes drift upwards, and he thinks again of the unfolding Tanabata-- of Orihime and Hikoboshi, the lovers who must cross the great distance to meet. The Princess Vega and her Altair. He is reminded, too, of Venus and Nephrite. He smiles at the thought, again, and glances to Mamoru. He thinks on that question, wondering of that ancient life. "I'm not sure... it's hard to say. I hear it as if from underwater, and I've never really understood. But it's there."
Mamoru Chiba	"If you ever really remember it-- will you tell me?" Endymion sounds strangely fragile for a heartbeat. "A name you left behind before we met." Mamoru turns around to stretch his legs out, even as the first firefly lands in Masato's hair. He chuffs a little laugh and leans over. "Stay still," he murmurs, then reaches up to where it is, and waits for the firefly to crawl onto his hand before bringing it away and letting it go, blinking, into the true dusk. "And I would never break Mako-chan's heart by trying to seduce you... I think she believes I have something called 'restraint' and I shouldn't disappoint her."
Nephrite	"As soon as I remember it... I'll tell you." He nodded. "Maybe I'll be able to show you--" He watched as Mamoru recovered the bug from his hair, and was a little surprised as he touched the place it had been. His gaze followed the insect for a moment, considering that it was a good omen for his current romantic inclination. Perhaps Mamoru's parents wished him well. "You know, I gave her a pink azalia bonsai and took her out to dinner before we even went to Crystal Tokyo. She spent all that time with me while there, and we fought beside each other. We planned out combination attacks together. She stayed by my side in the infirmary. Let me kiss her..." He recalled all of that, to say, with a slightly disbelieving scoff. "And she was still so worried she might have the wrong idea. She didn't know whether I thought we were together or not, right up to a fortnight or so before your wedding." He rubbed at his cheek some. "She doesn't remember anything, really. Just some feelings Jupiter had... But I don't mind." He admitted quietly, and glanced at Mamoru. "I feel lucky."
Mamoru Chiba	"You ''are'' lucky," Mamoru says frankly. "She was... not doing well, on the moon, the first time we visited for real, when it was ruins. She did not do well in the portal to the past dimension, either. If you ever hurt her I know you'll be the first one volunteering your head for the pike it'll end up on. She's a lot of people's favorite for a reason, and it's not just her cooking." Then the prince laughs, and he starts unfolding himself further and getting up, and he offers Masato a hand up, too. "Incense is almost out." He glances at the stone-- then regards it for a moment, looking at the names on the side, and then his, red. "It all depends," he says quietly, "on what our children will need." Then he smiles, and he places a hand on top of the stone again. "And I'm sure that's what they would have said too. But! It's like five years before I have to worry about it. I just have to keep telling myself that, and you're my lucky witness. Let's go drink beer on the roof or something."
Nephrite	Helped up, he laughs too. Mamoru is correct, after all-- he is amongst the first to understand what a gift Makoto has given him. Not just for his own peace, but to offer his heart a chance in this life to have what was arrested in the last. He sighs, but it's an easy thing. A deep draw of the air, of the fading evening warmth, the seasalt and incense. The taiyaki bag crinkles and the cicadas continue to call out, and the fireflies slowly filter in more. "I'm enjoying chilled natsuzake, myself... I can mix you a chuhai if you're feeling adventurous." He stretched languidly, and clapped his hand in a fraternal way upon Mamoru's shoulder.
Mamoru Chiba	"You're so classy," says the boy who fights monsters in formalwear, in another life the literal crown prince of the entire planet, "are you sure you want to be seen with me?" The cicadas hush. Mamoru doesn't notice. "I'd love a natsuzake," he says breezily as he lifts his backpack and slings it on his other shoulder. "But this time," he says, "Earth Crystal Power, Make Up! I'll do the teleport."