Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ An American Boy in Tokyo ❯ Who's The Crush? ( Chapter 4 )

"Okay, so now you're retracting what you said before?" Amy asked.

"No, you're still an animated series, this is just a form of an alternate dimension." I said. "There's a good side and a bad side to that though."

"What do you mean?" Raye asked.

"The good side is, you do actually exist, the bad side is...I don't think I can go back." I shook my head.

"Okay, so what do we do?" Lita asked. "Mina, you're the leader, what do we do about him?" Everyone looked at Mina, who was looking at me.

"You say that you've seen every episode and movie right?" She asked. I nodded.

"Okay then, are there any more battles coming up?" I shook my head.

"No, well, not until the era of Neo Queen Serenity anyway, but you should already know about that one." Mina nodded.

"Vaguely, what do you know about it?"

"Same thing you do, there were no movies or episodes based on Neo Queen Serenity, only comics, and they're not very reliable, they stray away from the show too much to be reliable." I shook my head. "So as far as inside information, you already know as much as I do." She nodded.

"Then we do nothing." She said. "If there is no more Negaverse, then there's nothing to do."

"Well then, that being the case, can we please lose this tension?" Serena asked. "You guys are killing me." she turned to me. "So you're a fan huh?" I smiled and chuckled.

"You're kidding right?" I asked. "I'm fanciere numero uno." I replied. "I've collected every piece of Sailor Moon memorabelia that I've been able to find."

"Really? That's interesting." She said. I shook my head.

"I don't think you get what I'm saying, um, follow me, I'll show you." I led the girls down to my room. Placing the collector's edition boxed sets in their designated places on the way down the stairs. I then unlocked my door and opened it flipping on the lights. "Welcome to the Moon Kingdom Museum." I said. "Home to everything ever made by any company based on your cartoon series." I looked around. "This room has a market value of almost three million american dollars." I said. I walked around unlocking the wooden cabinets and opening them. Inside were different scenes I had made using action figures. Lita walked over to what appeared to be a work shop desk and picked up a figurine with her likeness. She pushed the button on the back. `Jupiter Star Power!' She heard her own voice shout. She smiled and turned to the others.

"Hey guys, look, we're action figures!" She tossed each one a likeness of themselves. Including Luna and Artemus.

"Alex, this is nice and all, and I don't want to sound full of myself..."

"Oh, it's okay, Serena, we're used to it by now." Raye said, looking at her action figure. "Mar Celestial Fire SURROUND!" She heard her own voice shout. "These things are so cool."

"Anyways, I don't see any of mine anywhere." I smiled and pushed the glasses back on my face. I unlocked a much larger wooden cupboard and lifted the lid, there was still a glass wall keeping the figures seperated from the rest of the world. The scene inside depicted the final moments against Queen Beryl. Serena's jaw dropped.

"This is my most prized posession, well, second most prized posession." Her eyes drifted to the top of the scenario where she saw a golden tiara that looked exactly like hers. Her jaw dropped.

"Is that..."

"Twenty four karat gold, custom made as per my specifications, cost me about two thousand dollars, and worth every cent of it." I said. "That's my third most prized possession."

"What's your first?" Mina asked. I smiled and walked over to a black filing cabinet, unlocking the top drawer and pulling it out. I then removed a large black photo album and blew the dust off of it's cover.

"This is my absolute most prized possession, containing technical data on everything from Negaverse battle tactics, rosters, and even the schematics to your transformation items." Mina pointed to a section of the pages that had been completely taped together and covered up with electrical tape.

"What's that?" My eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed and I slammed the book shut, shoving it back in the drawer and locking it.

"Nothing." I said. I walked around locking the cases back up.

"Yeah right, I don't believe you." Mina said.

"I don't care." I replied. "It's a phase of my life that needs to be left buried."

"Am I detecting a bit of hostility there?" Lita asked.

"Yes, Lita, you are, I don't want to talk about it."

"Why?" Serena asked. "I mean what experience could have been that bad, that you'd want to just erase it?" I sighed and sat back down at the kitchen table lighting another cigarette.

"When I was fourteen, three friends and I started a role playing game based on the first saga. You know, against Queen Beryl. We were each assigned to a scout, and our job in the story was to protect that scout. Serena had Tuxedo Mask, so she was covered. I became engrossed with game, planning my actions for hours before each session we played. Then we got to the final battle, and things got shot straight to hell. I obsessed about it, when we played, and my character got hit, I felt the pain. Often times, it was so bad that I was limping by the end of the session. I started obsessing over my assigned scout also, until I had fallen in love with her. Then, in the battle when my scout was supposed to have died, my character took the final blow in her place. The pain was so horendous that they thought I had actually hurt myself." I had started staring off in space as I talked. "They took me to the emergency room, and the doctor called my parents. He told them that it was all in my head, and I needed psychiatric help." I chuckled and shook my head. "It's amazing how little they actually helped."

"What happened?" Raye asked.

"I was taken to see Dr. Shmitt, a psychiatrist with twenty years experience and a quadruple digit bill. He had me on so many medications that I lost everything except my feelings for that particular scout. There were many nights that I cried myself to sleep because of the pain caused by those prescriptions. So I decided to bury everything, for six months after I made that decision, I didn't touch anything related to the show, or anyone that reminded me of it. Dr. Shmitt finally reduced my medications, and I started to regain my interest on the show, careful to avoid anything that might dig it back up, then one day, my parents found my Archives and flipped to that section, it was full of pictures of the scout, and indications of the feelings still existing." I said. "I was immediately amped up to a higher dosage of the medicine than the first time." My voice started cracking. "I hated my parents for doing that to me, they didn't care, they both had respected positions in the community. My mom was a secretary for the Mayor of the city, my dad ran a successful car dealership, they couldn't very well have their son falling in love with a fictitious character, it might reflect bad things onto them."

"Who was it?" Amy asked. "The scout, which one of us was it?"

"I'm not saying." I said.

"Why? Nobody here will fault you for it, Alex."

"Why should I tell? Make a fool out of myself, even more than I already have? Answer me this, if I were to tell you, what are the odds of any of you even being slightly interested in me?" I asked. They looked around at each other.

"Alex, you're not that bad of a guy, yeah we freaked out at first because you knew about our secret identities, but on a personal level, you seem like a sweet, honest, clean cut guy." Mina said. I chuckled.

"You mean a nerd?" I asked.

"No, if I had meant nerd, I would have said it." She said. "You have a few self confidence problems, but that's not a big deal. None of us have ever been entirely confident in our own worth or ability."

"I know." I said nodding. "So you're saying that there's a chance that something might come of it?" I asked.

"There's always a chance." Mina said. "Who knows you might catch the person off guard and anything can happen then." My hand strayed to my chest and clutched at a pendant under my shirt.

"So, is that necklace their emblem?" Raye asked smiling.

"No." I replied. "Just a lucky charm of mine." I said.

"Can I see it, Alex?" Lita asked. I nodded and removed it handing it to her. She held it out in front of her.

"It's a castle." She said. "How cool, what is this sterling silver?"

"No, just pewter." I replied.

"That looks familiar." Mina said staring at it thoughtfully. I quickly snatched it from Lita's hand and replaced it.

"I don't know why it would." I said. Artemus jumped on the table in front of me.

"I do." He said. "So that's who it was." He smiled. I slapped my forehead and nodded slightly. Artemus smiled.

"Yeah, that's who it was." I sighed.

"Who was it?" Mina asked sitting in the chair to my left. Artemus smiled broadly at me and motioned with his head towards Mina.

"Do you wanna answer her question, or should I?" I shook my head.

"It's...you...Mina." I replied slowly. Artemus jumped back.

"My goodness, are you serious?!?!?!?" He asked. I looked at him with a confused expression on my face.

"You were bluffing." I said quietly. "Oh no, pardon me ladies, I'm going to go relieve some stress." I stood up and started walking towards the stairs. I had barely gotten to them when I fainted and fell all the way down.