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The Face in the Moon (4) : The night seems darker than it should be, but it’s been a cloudy day so it’s not too surprising, unless you’re also factoring in the strange sensation that someone is watching you. You won’t see anyone if you look around, but the longer you’re outside, the more intense and unnerving things become. And then–if you look up–you see why. The moon that you know has been replaced with a devilish face, with wide, piercing eyes and a devilish grimace. No matter where you go, it’s watching you–and it even seems like it’s unusually large in the sky. Maybe others around you have noticed the same thing–or maybe it’s just you. Maybe it’s in your mind, but if you stare up at the face for too long, you begin to hear a low growling, or a shrill static. Its eyes are hypnotic and fearsome. Whether it disappears behind the clouds or the horizon, at some point it is gone. The strangeness fades with the moon, but there’s still no real explanation. It doesn’t photograph, and nothing about it can be recorded. You just have to hope it was a one time nightmare.
A lot of weird and annoying things in this world, Murikabushi would endure for his friends. Sure, he might have reserved the right to complain about things or call someone out on how they could have handled things better. But he still would have endured these things for his friends because, even before he’d purified and things had slipped into the weird, nebulous realm of safety concerns that they currently occupied, friends were as good as family to him. Some, like Elijah, were all but outright adopted (though not so much so that Reiki had felt like he could safely tell his little brother-in-drags about the purification into Kiyoshi ahead of time).
Yet, as he closed in on Kerberos’s bench in North End Park—with two drinks in hand: a green tea with a splash of strawberry flavoring for himself, and a cookies and cream milk tea boba for Blossom (or for someone else if he wasn’t there; maybe Monoceros, Demeter, Ida, or Albite would be out and about and get to enjoy it instead)—Murikabushi grew weary of tolerating the weird and annoying thing currently on his tail.
Frankly, in his own gay little brain, he deserved a ******** medal for his patience about all this. Corvina had been following him for at least a good half-an-hour by now. Even before Kiyoshi had powered up into Murikabushi, Corvina had stalked along the same path that he’d followed. Some erstwhile weeaboos and assorted free-range fandom people periodically helped out by mistaking Corvina for a cosplayer, or some kind of LARP participant, or literally anything but an actual magical space alien with all the grace, dignity, and social etiquette of a rabid dingo.
Alas, they did not keep Corvina waylaid for very long. Through the cloudy evening that now settled into Vantablack night, he always managed to find his way back to Kiyoshi. Corvina always resumed his pursuit as though nothing had happened.
Initially, it hadn’t entirely made sense—but the logic of why this had clicked eventually. Unfortunately, hanging out with Shuangxu meant letting his extremely large, ill-tempered boyfriend know about Kiyoshi and Murikabushi being the same person. Thus, he had the ability to clock Kiyoshi out and about, and then start following him. This would’ve felt significantly less unbalanced if Kiyoshi had gotten to learn anything about Corvina, something akin to equivalent exchange for social situations, but even though he’d seen Corvina powered down, Shuangxu’s Man had yet to share his personal name or anything else with Kiyoshi-Murikabushi.
……Did this ******** weirdo even have a personal name? Or had Corvina come from one of those ancient societies where the senshi had had their entire civilian identity stripped from them upon Awakening? If he had, then Kiyoshi-Murikabushi felt for him because that sounded awful. But it didn’t make his behavior any less rude or any less ******** annoying.
Come to think, he hadn’t seen Corvina in a human glamour before, either, only powered down as his normal, alien self.…… Had he just not taken the time to get that together? What in the ever-living housewife ********. Whatever, that sounded like Shuangxu and Corvina’s business, unless either of them wanted to invite Kiyoshi-Muri into the discussion.
He really hoped that they didn’t decide to do this.
More to the immediately relevant point, Corvina had been so obvious about tailing Kiyoshi that aura senses hadn’t even been necessary to spot him. The most Corvina had done to conceal himself—from Kiyoshi or anyone else for that matter—had been staying on the other side of the street, and occasionally ducking behind a tree or a lamp-post (none of which did anything to conceal the six-foot-ten, orchid-pink, broken-horned beefcake tiger-elf from outer space). Even getting a shrug and a look like what the ******** is wrong with you? from Kiyoshi hadn’t made him stop. Going into the little café to pick up the drinks hadn’t accomplished anything either; the line had been pretty long, and ******** yet, when Kiyoshi emerged, Corvina had been right there, perched atop a low, decorative brick wall that sat around the edge of the park, looking like the most emotionally exhausting bird in the universe.
Honestly, running into Albite right now would’ve been a blessing. Using his magical tattoo-whips to tie Corvina up for a while would’ve at least given Murikabushi a ******** break. Then, he also could have spent some time with somebody who actually liked him, instead of babysitting an overgrown a*****e who saw fit to trail after Muri as he headed further into the park when he literally had not been invited.
But since Muri could not summon his friend by saying Albite’s name three times in a mirror or something equally silly, he had to take matters into his own hands. With a sigh, Muri stopped in his tracks. Even with the city noise around them, he heard the heavy footsteps galumphing over to a nearby tree. He waited for a count of ten, then called out, his tone simple and unimpressed, “I know you’re there, Corvina.”
