prologue: a few good reasons to cry

... But I don't understand.

"The sunlight's all caught in your eyes," he said.

Fall had taken all the life out of the earth; the grass that had been a second bed in earlier months scratched and itched against her arms now. His palms were on either side of her shoulders, trapping her against a vast scarecrow of ground. Sakura didn't struggle.

"The shadow's are all caught in yours," she whispered back, her hands drifting up to his cheeks. They were cold to the touch.

"Why are you always so hot when I'm so .. not." Sakura said through chattering teeth last Christmas, wrapped in three blankets and his arms. It was the second they spent together, and somehow she had convinced Touya to stay over at Yukito's, leaving the house empty and dark. Hindsight's 20/20; she's grateful for her brother's cooperation now.

"I read somewhere," Syaoran began, stretching his feet beneath the blankets to find her icicle toes, "that a boy's body is naturally warmer. Which is why girl's are so dependent -- it's the heat."

"Sorry, but that's not why I'm dating you."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." She nudged against his neck, finding the spot of absolute heat; he was sweating there and she felt a pang of guilt for having him beneath all the blankets in the house. "But it's a plus."

The t.v. echoed the 5 o' clock news: snow again tomorrow; blizzard watch in effect for tonight ...

"Then why are you dating me?" Syaoran asked.

"The same reason I want to marry you," Sakura answered. "The same reason you're warm when I'm not."

When he didn't speak, she felt for his chest through the quilt her father made the first year after her mother's death. Her fingers passed over the unbuttoned flannel shirt to where she could feel the strong drumbeat of his heart.

... It's because I need you.

Hands at either side of his frigid face, she found herself thinking, Liar. Now here she was, this heat when he wasn't. Or maybe they were both cold. She could feel the damp autumn ground seeping through her jacket and into her skin. All that was left of summer was dark ground and death; she missed the cherry blossom trees in full bloom, the hot July afternoons he put gardenias in her hair. Before, she had loved winter, always looking foreword to sleeping in by his side and waking up with the sheets pulled to her lips, to her unbrushed-morning teeth, and watching him watching her back in the way that made them both blush. They always caught each other saying I love you without words.

Now she'd always hate winter.

"I have an hour," Syaoran said, lowering himself to her cheek where she found that his smell had somehow already changed. He smelled like Hong Kong again; he smelled like jasmine and Taipei, like the Huang-He river he said he and Meiling used to practice swimming in. Most of all he smelt damp like summer rain and oranges. Gone was the cinnamon tea they'd sipped out of the same cup earlier. Gone was the chocolate Tomoyo had given them as a late anniversary present just hours before; gone was the industrialized Japan. He was already a mythical Chinese legend. He was as distant as the Moon that his magic relied upon. Just as distant, just as cold.

... But I don't understand.

It's not my choice.

Yes it is. It was your choice not to say no.

They're still family, Sakura.

Aren't I?

I have to do something. You don't understand; China and Japan aren't the same. I have certain responsibilities. I have certain obligations.

... I know. I'm sorry.

Sakura.

I just don't want you to go.

Sakura, stop crying.

What if you don't come back?

Sakura --

What if you don't come back?

How can you say that?

I can say it because it can happen. It feels like it already has.

.. I'm not going to spend the next few hours arguing. My plane leaves this evening. I'm taking you to the park now. It's selfish, but I want to be with you.

This evening? --

You're the one I want.

How long are you going to be over there--?

You're my number one, Sakura.

All this time his hands were around hers and he was pressing her further and further into the darkest corners of their desire. Finally she stopped crying, or maybe he began, and he sought her body in a way that was new to them both-- in a fitting way, this foreign way; in a few hours he wouldn't be Li Syaoran, afterall -- the soccer star and quiet one in class, but loudest when they were all laughing. Instead he will be Li Xiaolang; he will be calm, distanced, but his presence just as interrupting. His eyes will become a different shade of her favorite brown, they'd slant a little sharper, a much different way than hers. In a few hours he'd be speaking fluent Cantonese. In a few hours the sakura roots would lose their hold on his heart. But for now they had each other. And Sakura naively believed that would be enough to erase the nights he wouldn't be beside her. Sakura believed it would hold her through.

Sakura simply believed.

That evening as they stood outside the airport's entrance his last kiss tasted like oranges, or lemons, or bitter, at least. His luggage was bathed in the cheshire-cat moon, and his back, as it retreated without him glancing back one last time, was under her scrutinizing gaze. Finally the automatic doors slid open and the light overtook him. Sakura waited until she saw his head bow in a way that told her he was crying before she turned and, without so much as her own look behind, walked the dim way home, careful to avoid the slithers of moonlight breaking the darkness.

She realized now she hadn't lied when she said she needed him. Without his always-warmer-than-her heat, her body was already frozen. Or else, her heart.