Chapter Text
Embarrassing Haruka was a goal in itself. It might seem weird to enjoy making the person you loved uncomfortable, but Michiru had gotten used to being weird. She loved strangely in most people's eyes already.
Somehow, of the two of them, Haruka was the normal one. She slipped into the rings of chattering girls that Michiru had envied since middle school with the grace (and appetite) of a seal diving into a glinting shoal of mackerel, and they parted for her. No, she wasn't like them, but she didn't try to be and they understood that, her strangeness a law of nature. Exotic, instead of a stumble.
So perhaps, yes, it was mean to embarrass her like that in front of all the inner senshi and the Three Lights, but Michiru's instinct was understandable: to remind them who held the leash of this gentle, sullen, lithe, handsome creature. That they knew the feeling of being easy and golden and glowing with love—real love you didn't have to earn with accomplishment, from parents and friends and ordinary love-letter-writing boys in the back of class—but they didn't know what kinds of things Haruka said when she was on her back with her hands on Michiru's waist, always grinning like it was the first time. That Haruka always smiled at them, her lopsided smile that seemed to ask for permission to exist, because she didn't feel safe enough to let it down. She protected them, and that meant they couldn't protect her.
They were just like little kids, so it was embarrassing to admit that an equally childish part of Michiru was excited to be included in their silly whispering.
Also, she felt slightly sorry for the Three Lights.
It was Haruka’s fault, really, and Seiya’s, for acting like two guard dogs, yanking on their leashes to snarl at each other, and Michiru's mind naturally wandered.
She murmured something to the effect of: “She's not used to other dogs.”
And it was Yaten, not Michiru, who piped up, “if you can't control your dog, maybe you should muzzle it.” (With an expression that indicated he was considering the same for Seiya.) So it was Yaten’s and Seiya’s and Haruka’s fault before it was Michiru's.
Haruka had made a strangled nose, but then the doorbell rang and it was forgotten in the resulting chaos.
So, now, she had no right to sulk as they walked to the repair shop. She called those girls kittens all the time, and that was just innocent fun.
Michiru slowed her pace, as Haruka lagged behind her. “Don’t look so pitiful.”
“I’m your dog and I can’t make puppy-dog eyes at you?”
Michiru turned so Haruka could see her raised eyebrows. “So now you want to be my dog?”
“I’m just a little conf–”
“Stop talking.”
“You started it,” Haruka whined. Those girls had never heard this, Haruka whining and wheedling a little kid. Like a dog.
Michiru turned back to the path. “Dogs don't talk.”
A silver moth whirled past Michiru's face on its way up into the beam of a streetlamp. She swatted it away, strangely out of breath, and found Haruka had stopped completely behind her. No footsteps, no protest.
She pressed her lips together tightly, giving Michiru an intense, bulging stare. She was so cute when her eyes were big and round like that, as if she was innocent. One could argue this wasn't entirely farce: she knew her way around a (particular) woman's body, sure, but sometimes in her sleep she'd let out a muffled moan and raise her palms, as if to study them with her closed eyes.
“What are you doing?” Michiru asked.
Haruka tossed her head, pressing her lips tighter and frowning, but for some reason it didn’t occur to her to use her hands, so she was reduced to a series of awkward wobbles of her head and then, in case Michiru didn’t get the message, she whined like a dog.
Michiru had to stop, or she felt like she was going to fall over. “Good dog.” Her voice was faint.