Chapter 2

	The next afternoon, Ami headed up the stairs leading to the 
Institute of Medical Science, glancing down at her watch to check the 
time. She had purposely left the off-campus penthouse she shared with 
Makoto early so she wouldn’t be late for her first day as Professor 
Kitagawa’s assistant, and she was pleased to see that she still had a 
good ten minutes to spare before the five o’clock meeting time they 
had agreed on the day before. When she reached the entrance of the 
building, Ami dug her laminated I.D. card out of her purse and 
entered, flashing the card to the man on duty at the front desk before 
taking the elevator up to her teacher’s lab.

	I can’t believe I’m actually going to work with Kitagawa-
sensei, she thought for the hundredth time since he had hired her as 
she watched the numbers above the elevator doors glow a soft red as it 
went up each floor. It finally stopped when it reached the third 
floor, and, after adjusting her purse strap and smoothing out a few 
non-existent wrinkles in her knee-length black skirt, Ami exited and 
headed to lab 3C.

	The door to the lab was closed, but, looking through the small 
window, she noticed the lights were on, meaning the professor was 
probably already inside. Yesterday, he had said to come right in when 
she arrived, so, again getting out her I.D. card, which also served as 
a keycard, Ami slid it through the slit of the lock and quietly 
entered the room, which actually turned out to be an office/storeroom. 
As she had suspected, Professor Kitagawa was already there, typing 
something up on the computer that sat on top of the desk in the corner 
of the room.

	“Kitagawa-sensei?”

	Hearing her voice, the professor looked up from the computer, 
wearing a welcoming smile. “Ah, Mizuno-san, you‘re early,” he 
remarked. “I like that in an assistant. Welcome.”

	Ami bowed deeply. “Thank you for giving me this opportunity, 
sensei,” she said. “I will do my best not to disappoint you.”

	“I doubt that will be a problem.”

	Ami relaxed somewhat, hearing that and set her purse down on a 
nearby counter, only then realizing how tight she had been gripping 
the strap. She must have been more nervous than she thought. “Um…is 
there anything you need me to do?” she asked, unsure of what she was 
supposed to be doing.

	“Go ahead and wash your hands,” the professor suggested, 
resuming his typing. “You’ll find extra lab coats in that closet over 
there. I’ll be with you in a few minutes. Forgive me, I just need to 
finish this up before we begin.”

	“Hai.”

	Following his instructions, Ami scrubbed her hands clean with 
the soap she found by one of the sinks, then went to the closet and 
pulled out a crisp, clean lab coat. As always, she felt a small shiver 
of excitement as she put the coat on over her clothes, anxious to get 
to work.

	“So, what kind of research will we be performing?” Ami asked 
once Professor Kitagawa had finished whatever he had been typing up 
and walked over to the sink to wash his hands. He was already wearing 
his lab coat. “I left yesterday before you could get into specifics.”

	“Well, there are actually several projects I’m working on at 
the moment, and you will have a chance to assist me on all of them,” 
he explained, “but my focus is mainly on the development of an insulin 
pill for people suffering from diabetes. As I am sure you are well 
aware, there are certain acids in the stomach that have made the 
development of such a pill impossible in the past. The acid eats the 
insulin away before it has time to go through the body. That is why 
injections are used instead, as a way to directly get the insulin into 
the bloodstream and bypass the stomach, but I’m hoping that one day 
that won’t be necessary anymore. I’ve been working on this project for 
a couple of years, and though I haven’t had much success yet, with 
every failure, I feel I’m that much closer to reaching my goal.”

	“An insulin pill?” Ami repeated, surprised. She had to admit 
that when he first made the announcement to the class about looking 
for a lab assistant, she had been under the impression that he was 
working on a possible cure for cancer or a new treatment for HIV/AIDS. 
It somewhat disappointed her to learn they would be working on 
something so ordinary, even though she knew that the development of 
such a pill would be a godsend to millions of diabetes sufferers. 

	“You were expecting something more exciting perhaps?” he 
guessed correctly, smirking when she started to blush.

	“An insulin pill is a very worthy cause,” Ami said, flustered 
that he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. “Is there a 
reason why you are so interested in diabetes?” 

	“Yeah.”

	Professor Kitagawa’s voice went unexpectedly soft as he said 
the word, almost a whisper. It caught Ami off-guard, and she glanced 
over at her teacher, surprised to see that he was no longer drying his 
hands with the paper towel he had torn from a nearby roll, instead 
staring blankly off into space. She realized then that she must have 
said something wrong and regretted asking such a question.

	“Gomen nasai,” she quickly apologized, “I shouldn’t have 
pried. I was being rude, wasn’t I?”

	Shaking his head, the professor gave her a small half-smile. 
“No, not at all, Ami-chan,” he replied, tossing the paper towel into 
the trash can by his desk “May I call you that? I always feel strange 
being so formal with my students when I am only a few years older than 
you.”

	“H-Hai!”

	“Anyway, you were asking why I’m researching diabetes?” he 
asked. Ami nodded as he let out a sigh and ran and hand through his 
thick mane of ink-black hair. “The truth is that this is a rather 
personal crusade for me. You see, about ten years ago, my little 
sister was diagnosed with Type I diabetes, more commonly known as 
juvenile diabetes.”

	“Oh, I didn’t know --”

	“No, I didn’t expect you to,” he said. “After Junko was 
diagnosed, I decided to shift my focus away from chemical engineering 
to becoming a medical scientist. I promised her I would devote my life 
to studying diabetes and developing drugs that would hopefully help 
make her life easier.”

	Not knowing what to say, Ami remained silent, even more in awe 
of her teacher than before. For the first time, she saw him as more 
than simply her genius chemistry professor. His concern for his sister 
proved he also had a heart that was at least as big as his brain, and 
it only made her admiration for him grow even deeper, if that was 
possible.

	“I think that’s really noble of you,” she finally declared 
softly. “Junko-san is lucky to have a big brother like you, sensei.”

	“You think so?”

	Ami nodded. “Hai, very much so,” she said, giving him a smile 
before she glanced away, embarrassed. Her eyes then landed on a framed 
photograph sitting on his desk. She immediately recognized one of the 
people in the photograph as Professor Kitagawa, but his two companions 
-- another younger man who bore a remarkable resemblance to the 
professor and a teenage girl -- were unfamiliar to her. Picking it up 
for a closer look, Ami pointed to the beaming blonde in the middle and 
asked, “Is that Junko-san?”

	The professor came up behind Ami, smiling as he too looked at 
the happy photograph. “Yes, that’s Junko, my younger brother Satoshi, 
and me on Junko’s seventeenth birthday.”

	“She’s very pretty,” Ami remarked. “You would never guess she 
has such a horrible disease.”

	“No, you wouldn’t. Junko always has a smile on her face.” 
Pausing, he frowned. “You know, she has a boyfriend now…” 

	The remark was so unexpected and out of the blue, Ami couldn’t 
help but giggle, immediately slapping a hand over her mouth to hide 
her smile. Somehow, it didn’t seem appropriate to laugh at her 
teacher, but much to her surprise, Professor Kitagawa began chuckling 
as well, running a hand through his hair in what she was starting to 
recognize as a frequent tendency.

	“I suppose I am a little overprotective of her,” he admitted 
with a sheepish grin. “It drives her crazy, but, hey, what are big 
brothers for if not for scaring off the riffraff?”

	“I wouldn’t know, actually,” Ami replied, setting the picture 
back down in it’s proper place. “I’m an only child.”

	“Well, believe me, protecting our younger sisters from the 
evils of boyfriends is part of the time-honored Big Brother oath, 
along with teasing them relentlessly and bossing them around,” he 
said, pulling out a notebook from his desk drawer as Ami let out 
another giggle. “But enough chit-chat for now. Shall we get to work, 
Ami-chan?”

	“Hai!”

	Nodding, Ami took the notebook he offered and followed the 
professor through another door, which led to the laboratory proper. 
Already, several experiments had been set up, and her eyes widened as 
she took in everything around her. It was by far the most advanced lab 
she had ever seen, completely equipped with state-of-the-art, cutting
-edge technology, most of which looked as if it came straight from a 
high-budget American science-fiction movie.

	“Amazing…” she breathed. “This is your lab, sensei?”

	“Technically, it’s the school’s lab, but they have been more 
than generous in providing funds for my research,” he replied, 
grabbing a couple of pairs of safety goggles from a cabinet. He put 
one pair on and handed the other to Ami. “Here, you might need these.”

	Sliding the goggles on, Ami followed the professor as he 
headed toward one of the workstations that he had set up. He had 
already written out a rough procedure for the experiment they were 
working on that day on the first page of the notebook, so after 
checking the required glassware for any star cracks, Ami immediately 
began piecing together a flask and an adaptor to prepare for a 
distillation.

	 “You know what, Ami-san?” he asked a couple of minutes later.

	Without losing her concentration, Ami briefly glanced over at 
her professor, who stood casually by, his hands behind his back as he 
watched her. “Hai, sensei?”

	“I think you’re off to a fantastic start.”

	She blushed and got back to work.

*****

	After Ami left a couple of hours later, their work for the day 
completed, Akira decided to stay behind at the lab, going over the new 
data she had compiled that evening. He truly was amazed by how much 
they had managed to accomplish in such a short time thanks to his new 
assistant’s speedy hand and efficiency. Akira had expected it would 
take Ami at least a week or two to become accustomed to her new 
workplace, but if he didn’t know better, he would have thought she had 
spent her entire life in the laboratory.

	Akira concluded he had made the right decision after all in 
hiring Mizuno Ami. He admitted he had his doubts at first, considering 
that she was only second-year pre-med, but, if today was any 
indication of her abilities, Akira expected Ami to become even more 
efficient as she continued to learn more about how he ran the lab and 
what he expected. 

	His concentration was interrupted by the sound of a knock on 
the door to the lab’s office.

	Akira frowned as he set the notebook aside and went to answer 
the door. “Ami-chan, did you leave something behi--” Akira started, 
his sentence cut short when he opened the door. Instead of his blue-
haired assistant, as he had expected. his visitor was an older man, 
around seventy, wearing glasses and an impeccably white lab coat over 
his suit. The name on the official I.D. card attached to his breast 
pocket read “Dr. Nakajima Ryu.” “Oh, Nakajima-sensei, gomen,” he said, 
ushering the man inside. “Come in. I thought you were somebody else.”

	Professor Nakajima, a former teacher of Akira’s and a world-
renowned genetic engineer, grinned as he stepped inside the office. “A 
new girlfriend, I presume?” 

	“No, just a new assistant,” Akira answered, closing the door.

	“Ah, yes, I heard about the trouble you had with your previous 
one.” Shaking his head, the older professor took a seat on the stool 
Akira offered. “Such a pity.”

	“It was his own stupid fault. You’d think somebody as 
intelligent as Watanabe Jiro-kun would know better than to steal drugs 
from this lab,” Akira said, sighing. It was still hard to believe the 
bright young graduate student, his trusted assistant for almost a 
year, had turned out to be a druggie. It just went to show that that 
people were not always what they seemed. “Thank goodness we caught him 
before he was able to deal to anyone, though. Some of those drugs were 
only in the experimental stages. If anyone had taken them… Well, I 
don’t even want to think about what might have happened.”

	“Yes, it was quite fortunate,” Dr. Nakajima agreed. “But 
enough about Watanabe-kun. Tell me about this new assistant of yours. 
Ami-san, right? How is she working out so far?”

	Smiling, Akira gathered up a stack of results. “Ami-chan’s 
great,” he said. “Today was only her first day, but already she’s 
managed to do nearly twice the amount of work as Jiro-kun on a good 
day.” He flipped through the notebook, still marveling at how much 
they had gotten done. “I really think I made a good decision hiring 
her. Ami-chan may only be a second year pre-med student, but she 
certainly knows her way around a laboratory.”

	“Ami-san…” Dr. Nakajima frowned and rubbed the graying 
whiskers on his chin, his brow furrowed as if trying to place the 
name. “You wouldn’t by chance be talking about Mizuno Ami-san, would 
you?” he asked.

	Nodding, Akira placed his briefcase, which he had set down on 
the floor out of the way, on the table and opened it. “Actually, yes. 
Yes, I am,” he replied, putting some of the papers in the case. “Do 
you know her? Is she a student of yours?”

	“No, I only know her by reputation. She currently holds the 
top spot in her class, doesn’t she?”

	“I believe so.”

	“Smart girl, that Mizuno-san. She gets it from her mother.”

	Akira paused and glanced up from his work, surprised that his 
former teacher knew his new assistant‘s mother. “Her mother?”

	“Mizuno Saeko-sensei, formerly Hanabishi. She was a former 
student of mine with whom I’ve kept in contact over the years.”

	Remembering his interview with Ami the day before, Akira 
recalled her mentioning Dr. Mizuno in passing. “Oh, yes, Ami-chan told 
me her mother was a doctor. She wants to follow in her mother’s 
footsteps.”

	“Those will be some mighty big shoes to fill,” Dr. Nakajima 
chuckled. “Mizuno-sensei is one of the most highly respected surgeons 
in all of Tokyo, but if anyone can do it, I’m sure her daughter can.”

	“I’m sure she can, too.”

	After he finished putting his papers away, Akira snapped close 
the briefcase and shrugged out of his lab coat, placing it haphazardly 
on the hook beside the door before getting ready to leave.

	“Are you on your way home? I can give you a lift, if you’d 
like,” Dr. Nakajima offered.

	“No, that’s fine. Walking is about the only exercise I get 
nowadays.”

	The older professor smiled, placing a hand on his slight beer 
belly and jiggling the fleshy area. “I wish I had that kind of 
determination,” he admitted. 

	“Looks like somebody has been eating a few too many éclairs 
lately,” Akira said with a smirk.

	“You know I’ve always had a fondness for donuts.”

	“Well, try to cut back, okay? We want to keep you around for a 
while yet.”

	“Will do,” Dr. Nakajima promised, though both of them knew he 
wouldn’t. “Are you sure you don’t want that lift? Final offer. I was 
just about to head home myself, so it’s no trouble.”

	“I’ll be fine, but thank you,” Akira said.

	“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

	“Yes, later.”

*****

	“Mako-chan, tadaima!”

	In the kitchen, where she was busy chopping up some onions for 
a new recipe she had learned at work, Kino Makoto smiled at the 
cheerful greeting. Even though she and Ami had been roommates for 
going on two years, it still filled her with happiness every time she 
heard those words. They had been absent in her life for far too long 
after years of living on her own.

	“I’m in here, Ami-chan!” she called out, expertly transferring 
the onions to a pan.

	The blue-haired girl entered the kitchen a few seconds later, 
sniffing the air. “Mmm… What smells so good?” she asked, hopping up on 
one of the stools which surrounded the small island in the middle of 
the spacious kitchen.

	“Shrimp étoufée,” Makoto answered. “I’m trying out a new 
recipe I learned today at the restaurant. I hope it turns out well. 
It’s a rather difficult recipe.”

	“If it was cooked by you, then it will be delicious,” Ami 
assured her. “The other girls must be green with envy that I get to 
eat the great Chef Kino’s cooking every night of the week.”

	Blushing, Makoto waved off the compliment. “I’m only just an 
apprentice. It will be a couple more years before I’ll be a true 
chef,” she reminded Ami as she turned down the heat on one of the 
burners. “So, how was your day?” she asked once that was done. “Wasn’t 
today supposed to be your first day working at the lab with that young 
professor?”

	“Hai, it was.”

	“So…don’t keep me in suspense. How did it go?”

	“It went well.”

	Makoto arched an eyebrow in her friend’s direction, surprised 
by the short, concise answer. “’It went well’? That’s all you have to 
say about it? You were practically bouncing off the walls last night 
in anticipation.”

	“I was not!” Ami protested bashfully. “Besides, you‘d probably 
be bored with the details…”

	“Hey, I might not understand science, but that doesn’t mean 
I’m not interested in what happens in your life, Ami-chan,” Makoto 
said, joining her friend at the island. She estimated she had a couple 
of minutes to spare while her vegetables cooked. “Tell me what 
happened. Did you two find a cure for cancer yet?”

	“Mako-chan, something like that would take years of research 
and experiments to discover.”

	“Well, if this professor is anywhere near as smart as you,
It’s only a matter of time, right? Between the two of you, I bet you 
two could even discover the secret of life if you put your minds to 
it.”

	The other girl blushed in embarrassment, waving her hands in 
front of her face. “You think too highly of me. I’m only a student 
assistant with much still to learn,” Ami said, as modest as ever. 
"Anyway, Kitagawa-sensei’s research is mostly focused on diabetes 
actually, not cancer.”

	“Diabetes?” She remembered hearing that word before, when one 
of the chefs at the restaurant had to prepare a special meal for a 
diabetic patron. “Isn’t that the disease where you aren’t allowed to 
eat sweets?”

	“Hai,” Ami answered. “Kitagawa-sensei’s younger sister is a 
diabetic, and so he decided to dedicate his life to learning more 
about the disease.”

	“That’s really admirable,” Makoto commented, impressed. 
"Kitagawa-sensei sounds like a really great guy.”

	Navy blue eyes brightened significantly. “He is!” Ami 
chorused, causing Makoto to laugh at her obvious enthusiasm. “What’s 
so funny?” she asked, her brows furrowed in confusion.

	Makoto wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes and smiled at 
the dumb-founded genius. “You know, Ami-chan, I think Minako-chan 
might have been right after all,” she said. “You do have a crush on 
him!”

	“Ma-Mako-chan, he’s my teacher!”

	“So?”

	“So… So… I admire him, that’s all!” Ami declared a little too 
forcefully as a light blush tinted her milky white cheeks. “Sensei is 
extremely intelligent, and funny, and caring…”

	“…and cute,” Makoto cut in, wagging her finger before Ami 
could even open her mouth to protest. “Don’t even try to deny it. You 
said so yourself that he was handsome. Remember?”

	“Only from a purely objective standpoint.”

	“Are you sure it was just ‘purely objective?’ It‘s pretty 
difficult to be objective about something like that…”

	Ami’s blushed deepened, but, unlike some people -- namely 
Minako and Usagi -- Makoto knew when to stop with her teasing. Sliding 
off the stool beside Ami, she went to check on her vegetables and saw 
that they were almost done. Makoto transferred them to another pan 
with the already cooked shrimp, added a few seasonings, and, a few 
minutes later, dinner was served.

	“So, how was your day, Mako-chan?” Ami asked once they had sat 
down at the table to eat. “What else did you do besides perfect this 
fabulous recipe?”

	“Oh, it was a pretty normal day,” she replied with a slight 
shrug of her shoulders. Her day hadn’t been nearly as exciting as Ami's
first day at her new job. “It was slow at the restaurant, so we 
spent most of the time experimenting with new recipes. Oh, and 
Asanuma-kun came by for lunch, which was nice. He told me to tell you 
‘hello.’”

	“Asanuma-kun? It’s been a while since I last saw him. How’s he 
doing?”

	“He’s doing great.” Makoto felt the ends of her mouth tug up 
in a small smile as she thought of her longtime friend. It was true 
that he hadn’t been around much lately, as he had been busy studying 
for his college entrance exams, then practicing with the university’s 
baseball team once he got in, so any visit from him was a special 
treat. “He’s enjoying his classes at school, and it sounds like he’s 
doing really well in practice. In fact, since the right fielder broke 
his finger during their last game, Asanuma-kun thinks he has a good 
chance at making the starting line-up for a few games. He‘s really 
excited about the opportunity to play, especially since their team is 
currently ranked number one.” 

	“That is exciting. Are you going to go see him play?” Ami 
asked.

	“Actually, I was kind of hoping to invite all the girls to a 
game,” Makoto admitted. “It’s been so long since we really did 
anything together besides meet up at Crown. It‘ll be nice to hang out 
together like we used to and cheer Asanuma-kun on. What do you think?”

	“A baseball game? I don’t know. I’m not really a fan, and I 
might have a lot of homework to do that night…”

	“Oh, come on, Ami-chan. It would mean a lot to Asanuma-kun, 
and I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun. Please?”

	“Oh, okay,” Ami relented with a smile. “If the other girls 
agree to come, I suppose I can take one night off from my studies. It 
has to be a weekend game, though, since I work Monday through Friday 
at the lab. I doubt Kitagawa-sensei will allow me to skip a session to 
go to a baseball game.”

	“Great! I’ll call the other girls and see when we call all get 
together.”

*****

	Once she had finished helping Makoto clear away the dishes, Ami 
headed to her bedroom to study. She took a seat at the antique oak desk on 
the opposite side of the room, and, selecting her chemistry textbook, smiled 
as she opened the book to the correct chapter and started working on the 
first equation.

	Some people liked to call her a bookworm, a description -- though 
hurtful at times -- Ami admitted was not far from the truth. From a very 
early age, she had shown an almost supernatural gift for attaining 
knowledge. Talking in full sentences by age one, reading at a middle school 
level by age two, solving simple algebraic equations before she had even 
started grade school -- by all definitions of the word, she had been a child 
prodigy, “the reincarnation of Einstein” as her doctor mother, herself a 
very intelligent woman in her own right, had liked to joke. 

	Later, Ami would learn her mother was half-right; she had been 
reincarnated from a previous life, but not Albert Einstein’s. She was 
actually the reincarnation of Sailor Mercury, the princess of that same 
planet and widely regarded as a genius during that long-ago era, but Ami 
knew that she still had a long way to go before she could favorably compare 
her intelligence with that which her previous self possessed. That was part 
of the reason why she threw herself so heavily into her schoolwork, a 
competition of sorts against her past self to fulfill her intellectual 
potential, and, perhaps, in time, even surpass it. Knowledge was power, and 
though Ami knew her magical powers as Mercury were weaker compared to the 
other Sailor Senshi, she was determined to bridge that gap with her brain 
power.  

	Interrupted from her studying by the ringing of her phone, Ami 
involuntarily jumped before regaining her bearings and reaching for the 
receiver. It was her own private line, so she knew the call was for her and 
not for her roommate. “Moshi moshi?” she answered, bring the phone to her 
ear. “Mizuno Ami speaking.”

	“Ami, it’s me,” a woman’s voice said. “I’m not interrupting your 
studies, am I?”

	Ami grinned, her faint annoyance at being interrupted fading away. 
“No, okaa-san, it’s fine,” she replied, closing her chemistry book and 
setting it aside. “How are you?” 

	“Busy as usual,” Mizuno Saeko sighed, the doctor’s tired voice 
failing to conceal her fatigue. “I just finished working a double shift. 
Things have been crazy here at the hospital as of late.”

	“Well, maybe I should let you get some sleep…” Ami suggested, 
knowing how exhausted her mother must be after working two shifts back to 
back.

	“No, don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine. I’ve drunk so much coffee over 
the last few hours, I feel like I could run a marathon,” she joked. “Believe 
me, Ami, coffee is a doctor’s best friend. I want you to remember that when 
you start your internship. I never would have gotten through mine without 
it.”

	“I‘ll keep that in mind, okaa-san.”

	“So, what about you? Anything new happening in your life? Are you 
still doing well in your classes?”

	“Actually, I just started a new job at the school,” Ami announced 
proudly, excited to tell her mother about becoming Professor Kitagawa’s lab 
assistant. As much as Makoto and the rest of her friends tried to share in 
her excitement, she knew only a fellow scientist could truly understand how 
important it was to her.

	However, her mother didn’t sound quite as pleased as Ami had hoped. 
“A job?” 

	“Hai. I’m working as a lab assistant under one of my professors,” 
Ami said, ignoring the doubtful tone in her mother’s voice. Nothing was 
going to ruin the euphoria of her day. “Isn’t that great? Normally only 
graduate students are offered a job like this, so it‘s really an honor.”

	“Yes, it sounds like a wonderful opportunity… But are you sure you 
can handle a job along with your studies?”

	A part of Ami was upset that her mother didn’t think she could 
balance working and studying at the same time. After all, she had managed to 
keep up her grades while fighting as Sailor Mercury. Compared to battling 
supernatural creatures, working as a lab assistant would be a walk in the 
park. Ami sighed, though, realizing her mother only had her best interests 
at heart. 

	“Yes, okaa-san,” Ami assured her. “It’s only for a couple of hours a 
day, and I have weekends off. I have plenty of time to study. Besides, I’m 
learning so much from Kitagawa-sensei.”

	“Kitagawa-sensei? Is he the professor who you are working under?”

	“Hai!” Unconsciously, Ami began to grin, thinking once again of the 
young professor. “Oh, okaa-san, Kitagawa-sensei is amazing,” she said, her 
finger absent-mindedly twirling the cord of the phone. “You wouldn’t believe 
how much he’s accomplished so far, and he’s still so young! He’s going to 
achieve great things in his life, I know it. Plus, he has such a passion for 
science. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so dedicated to his work. You 
can tell he really loves it.”

	“He sounds like a wonderful teacher, Ami.”

	“He is!” she agreed. “But it’s more than that. He’s also funny, 
kind, and amazingly intelligent…”

	Ami didn’t realize she had drifted off until she heard a soft, 
almost wistful, sigh coming from the other end of the phone. “Yes, I had a 
professor like that once as well,” her mother said. “But, Ami, be careful, 
okay?”

	Confused by the strange request, Ami furrowed her brow. “What do you 
mean? Be careful of what?”

	There was a long pause before her mother finally answered, as 
cryptic as before, “Just…be careful.”

	Ami had absolutely no idea to what her mother was referring, but 
since she seemed to have no desire to elaborate on her warning, Ami wrote if 
off as simply a mother’s worry that she would fall behind in her studies if 
she got too caught up in her new job. To Mizuno Saeko, school always came 
first. “Don’t worry, okaa-san. I promise the second this job starts to 
interfere with my schoolwork, I’ll quit, but it’s not going to happen. I 
have everything under control.”

	“I’m glad to hear it.” There was a short pause as the doctor opened 
what sounded like a box of frozen pizza on the other end of the line. “Well, 
I guess I’ll let you go then, sweetie. I need to start dinner, and I’m sure 
you have plenty of homework to do now that you’re working.”

	“Yes, I do,” Ami admitted, glancing over at the closed chemistry 
book she had placed on top of the stack of four other textbooks she needed 
to look through before heading to bed. “I’ll talk to you later, okaa-san. 
Try to get some rest, okay?”

	“I‘ll try. Bye.

	“Bye.”






DISCLAIMER: Sailor Moon is the property of Takeuchi Naoko.

AUTHOR’S NOTES: All comments and criticisms can be sent to me at 
ElysionDream@aol.com.

Thank you to my editors I Abibde/Samuraiter and Starsea.