Sai-chan here! I'm sorry for not updating for a long time. I've been really busy with school lately and couldn't find the time to finish what I started.

To make up for everyone, here's a fic I wrote for a challenge by fairymage in livejournal. For details of my updates on my ongoing fics please check out my user account.

For now read and review!

Disclaimer: I own no CCS

BEAUTIFUL SAD EYES

I always watch him.

He knows, but he doesn't know that I know that he knows.

Out of the corner of his eyes and at times with the help of his other self he watches me watch him – over lunch, in the middle of choir practice, during student council meetings; I bet he can even feel my fixed gaze at him whenever he helps out the soccer club or the archery team.

He has always known me for my great powers of observation. He even commended me for that – twice if I remember correctly – which is a rare thing for the half-reincarnation of the most powerful sorcerer in the world to do. It isn't everyday after all that he is surprised by somebody more than once, especially if that somebody is as magical as a brick.

But there is something in the way that I watch him since he returned at the beginning of junior high that seems to flatter and confuse him.

At times he'd try to catch me looking at him, but he's always a breath too late.

I don't think he's bothered at the very least though. In fact, I think he's enjoying our little game.

Except maybe now.

For the last hour and a half he's been trying to focus his attention to the book before him to no avail.

We are at the library, doing some research for an English project. Sakura-chan and Li­-kun are supposed to join us, but has to back out at the last minute when Sakura received extra homework in Math. Naturally, Li-kun helped her.

So it's just me and him. And I am now staring at him openly, the way a TV addict fixes his gaze on the television screen.

He feigns a cough, and I remain staring at him.

He flips a page.

"Your book is upside down," I managed to tell him.

He fights the colors creeping from his cheeks. "I'm trying to see if there's a secret code if I read it upside down."

"In our math exercise book? I'm really amazed on how you think," I told him with a light laugh.

He chose not to answer and went back to his reading (this time properly) and I continued to stare.

Teasing the young mage can be pretty fun if one plays her cards right. It will always display an interesting aspect about him the world usually has no idea of. His other half may be lifetimes older than him or anybody I know, but in my eyes he's still a teenager like me and Sakura-chan.

Observing him for a good three years (not including the card capturing days) I've learned a lot of things about him apart from the stuff I learned from our occasional conversations which are usually interrupted by every living creature imaginable – Nakuru-san, Spinel-san, Sakura-chan, Li-kun, Kero-chan – even my mother! It's as if many interruptions just keep on coming between what could have established a better relationship for the two of us.

I'm not one to complain though. Observing him alone is more than enough for me to learn more about him – that he loves sweets and teasing Li-kun, that he admires Sakura-chan's naïveté and treats her like his own daughter, that the Clow in him cares and misses Yue and Cerberus, that the piano is his only means of expressing himself, that he never liked the idea of being the most powerful mage in the world, that his only family are Spinel-san and Nakuru-san – all that and even more.

What I don't know is what drove me to observe him like this – it just sort of happened. The truth is I'm observing him up to now to know.

"Daidouji-san, is there anything on my face?" he asked always polite.

I merely smiled and returned to the book I'm reading.

He heaved a sigh of defeat and I fought down a chuckle. He knows better than debate with a Daidouji.

And I continued to stare.

We left the library just as it was about to close. It was getting dark and being the gentleman that he is, he offered to walk me home.

Neither of us said a word as we walked, our shoes against the pavement breaking the silence between us.

I stopped on my tracks and he looked at me questioningly. As if to answer his unspoken question I ran a hand on my cheek. It was wet, and to our utter surprise it started to rain.

Like a reflex he grabbed me by the hand and we made a wild dash for cover.

Despite his towering figure he managed to squash himself beside me at the King Penguin slide, his shoulder against mine.

"Will it be long?" I asked.

He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his glasses. "About half an hour or so I think."

I don't know what went over me then, and like a thief I took his glasses for my scrutiny. He looked at me surprised.

"Just as I thought, these aren't prescription glasses…" I said tucking the spectacles in his breast pocket. "Why do you need to hide your eyes?"

"Why do you want to know?" he asked, answering my question with another question. Very like him.

I smiled at his reply and looked at him straight in the eye.

I was suddenly at a lost for words.

It was the first time I looked at him without his glasses and it was the first time I realized the reason behind my fascination in observing him.

The witty mischievous character in the surface…

The unspoken sadness and loneliness…

The desire for a family to love…

"Y-You have beautiful eyes," I managed to say, tearing my gaze away from his as I felt something at the corner of my eyes. I couldn't bear to look.

What I saw scares me.

"Tomoyo?"

It was the first time he called me by my first name and I looked at him wide eyed. His dark blue yes bored straight into my mauve ones. I quickly looked down.

"You're crying," he said in a bare whisper, cupping my cheek with his right hand to prevent me from looking away.

"Beautiful sad eyes," I thought to myself.

He smiled. "Just like yours."

And it was then that I realized that it was in his eyes I find my missing pieces.

Review, ne?hugs