Author's note: I'm going to stress this again before we begin the story: this fic will have mature content not suitable for younger readers. Please, if you are under sixteen, do not read this fic. Normally, I wouldn't be so fussed about things like ratings, but I wrote this story with a purely adult audience in mind. So please bear that in mind as you read this fic, otherwise, you can turn back now.

Title and song lyrics credits go to Synchronicity performed by Yui Makino (Sakura's voice actress).

synchronicity

Where is this warmth going?
When it's tomorrow, it'll vanish
If I synchronized the heartbeats of our chests
Would I be able to fall to the same depth as you?

one;

The harsh desert wind whipped strands of chestnut-coloured hair across her face. She was accustomed to the arid heat, but as the sun continued to glare mercilessly down from a cloudless blue sky, she had to pause in her step for a moment. She adjusted the cowl of her white hood back neatly over her head from the lopsided position the wind had blown it to. Then, with long, dainty fingers, she wiped the collecting sweat off her forehead. She knew, however, that it was best not to remain still. She had somewhere she wanted to go.

As she crested one final dune, the town came clearly into view. It was as lively as usual today, and for a moment she had to pause again just to watch the villagers pace around the streets leisurely at their daily business. It made her smile, especially when her nose detected the faint smell of cooking from the distance. The town smelt like salt today, like that of the ocean. She had never been to the ocean before, but she had heard stories, mostly from him. She longed to hear more. His hut was located at the outskirts of town and was boxed in snugly between other similar structures. It was nondescript; it was low-ceilinged and it vaguely resembled an igloo (she had heard stories about igloos too). It was designed that way to absorb damage on particularly windy days. Though plain in exterior, it was no less comfortable than the castle – this she knew from experience. She would always expect a warm welcome there.

Still, when she lifted her hand and knocked upon the wooden door, she did it somewhat hesitantly. She did not want to intrude. She waited, hands behind her back, her gaze directed pointedly at the sky. Her heart was thumping.

He opened the door for her within half a minute of her knocking. She drew a breath then and felt a shiver of anticipation tingle down her spine. A sweet, almost sickly emotion swelled in her chest and felt ready to burst.

She smiled and walked inside.

Extracts from the journal of Queen Nadeshiko:

… I had a dream…

… Only I and the boy who is not of this world can see the Wings. I watch them spread and envelope my daughter's fate ever further. There is nothing, I think, that is more frightening than the simple passage of time…

… Wishes bring such pain. Fei-Wang Reed has a wish and so do I. My wish is the same as my husband's, the same as my son's, the same as the villagers of Clow, the same as Syaoran's…

… He is on a journey. A fruitless one, I fear. For there is no way to stop the curse of the Black Wings without paying the price he is not prepared to pay, not unless time itself loses its meaning…

… I saw the possibility in my dream. There are many universes that exist on the hinge of a single moment. I can only see a sparse hint of them in my dreams. This dream rests upon Syaoran and what, to him, the passage of time can mean, for him and for Sakura…

"So how was your journey, Syaoran? Was it fun? Did you take care of yourself? Did you eat your vegetables?" she asked him.

He laughed; he couldn't help it. "Yes, I did, actually," he answered as he closed the door of the hut. He propped himself comfortably on his plainly decorated bed sheets.

Eagerly, Sakura sat down beside him. "So what did you do? What places did you see?"

"Well…" He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. It was difficult to talk about those sorts of experiences with Sakura, particularly because she had no idea why he went through all of the trouble. In fact, he hated to leave Sakura at all, especially these days. Yet for her sake, he strove to find enjoyable aspects of his travels to relate to her.

She listened attentively, the way she always did. When he was done speaking, she clapped her hands together. He found himself admiring the mischievous sparkle in her green eyes before he remembered abruptly what it meant.

She leaned forward suddenly and poked him on the forehead, then fell back, laughing at what was no doubt his stunned demeanour.

"You grew, Syaoran!" she exclaimed. "You had a growth spurt!"

"Did I?"

"Yeah, you did!" She grinned. "I could tell! We used to be the same size but now you're half a head taller than me. It's so unfair!"

He smiled back at her. He could practically feel Sakura's cheer sinking into him. "I don't see what's so bad with that," he remarked.

"I do!" Sakura huffed. "It's strange to hug you now. I get a weird feeling…"

"Oh." He understood that. He felt it too. It was the reason they had not hugged when he had let Sakura in the door. "I guess we're not little kids anymore, that's why…"

"I'm not sure I like that," Sakura muttered. "I mean, I can't wait until my coming-of-age ceremony but in another way, I feel like I want to wait forever."

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"I don't really know," Sakura replied, puzzled. "Sometimes, I just have a really good day and I think, 'If time stopped now, I wouldn't mind at all.' I've been having those moments a lot more lately."

"If time stopped…" He mulled over those words in his head. He found himself a little bit shaken, because he understood exactly what Sakura meant.

"Sometimes, I'm scared when you leave," she said. "Like maybe you'll just go and never come back."

"I'd never do that!" he insisted strongly.

"I know you wouldn't," said Sakura. She was still rather puzzled. "I think," she continued slowly, as if probing, "maybe it's because I'm scared something might happen."

That made him sit up with alacrity. "Like what?"

"I don't know," she said again. "I haven't been having any weird premonitions. You don't have to worry, Syaoran," she added sweetly. "I'm fine, so you can let go…"

It was only then that he realised that he had his arms held protectively around her. It had been an unconscious action, but Sakura's words brought attention to how close they were and her earlier remark about the strange feeling such proximity brought her.

"Ah, sorry!" Hastily, he released Sakura and pressed his hands against his knees instead. He could not look Sakura in the eyes. He did not notice that she was staring at her own knees with equal coyness.

Eventually, she stood up. She was shaking her head vigorously, as if in an effort to regain her former enthusiasm.

"Want to play around town a bit?" she asked. "I don't think my brother will ring the bell for a while yet."

She hesitated for a brief moment and then held out her hand for him. She was determined to forget the strangeness of physical contact – or maybe she wanted to remember more of it. He took her hand because he wanted both those things at once. He had always liked the soft, delicate texture of Sakura's hands.

For them, playing around town was something they had done since childhood. They knew every avenue in the town, all the little shortcuts they could take and which wells had the sweetest water. They knew the townsfolk too; they always greeted the two of them as they walked past. There was a sort of sameness to the experience. He understood what Sakura meant, about moments so quiet and enjoyable he wanted to stop time, just for the sake of living in that painted memory forever.

That night, he lay alone in bed, deep in thought. Time was running out. He was conscious of it, as surely as he was conscious that he was alive and breathing. If he did not find out how to break Sakura's curse, then she would die. He had found out nothing in his travels, nothing at all…

He shivered. Time was running out and he felt an uncontainable urge to do something. He had no means of doing so, and the thought of that left him feeling bitter and frustrated.

And then, as he so often did, he thought of Sakura's face, bright and vivid in the window of his recollection. He brought his hands down lower under his bed sheets, until he felt the touch of his own skin. He could hear himself breathing heavily against the softness of his pillow. His flesh felt hot and pulsating down there and he could feel the sweet friction growing between his fingers. He shuffled under the covers, tensing and curling his body. Then he began to stroke himself, at first with a slow deliberate motion before speeding up in time with his panting breaths. With his fingers, he traced the veins on his hard flesh and touched the tip of himself, where he already felt a touch of wetness. All that time he was mouthing words into his pillow – her name – and involuntarily, he groaned. He was pulling hard on himself and he could feel something inside of him coiling and tightening relentlessly. It was a sweet agony. Then suddenly, he felt a jerk, a spasm – and for a moment all he could see was blinding whiteness. He fell back after that and the tension in his body eased. He felt, briefly, as if he was riding on a cloud.

Then just as abruptly, he was back in Clow and he could hear the slowing rhythm of his breathing. A hot shame washed over him and he let out an anguished rasp. He had touched his own body with fierce urgency; it only reminded him how much he wanted to touch her.

But no! He grimaced. Sakura was a princess and he wasn't even from her world. Protecting her was one thing – it was his fault she needed protecting in the first place – but to possess her? The thought repulsed him as much as it appealed to him. And yet… And yet…

He could not bring himself to finish the thought.

Eventually, he fell asleep listening to the sound of the clock ticking on the wall, dividing up the seconds that would never return.

In the morning, he woke up and coughed. He sniffed. He realised that he had somehow gotten the flu. He had probably contracted it in his travels and was only beginning to show the symptoms. This made him sigh; he resented when he was ill.

He spent most of the morning in bed reading a book, getting up only to prepare a hasty breakfast for himself. He read not just because he needed knowledge more than anything else – he simply liked books. It was difficult to concentrate but he loathed sitting still and doing nothing.

Sakura came around the early afternoon. He had left the door open so that he could let the breeze come in and she entered at her own discretion. She saw him lying on the bed and immediately, her hands flew to her mouth in surprise.

"Syaoran, are you sick?"

"Don't worry," he told her. "It's not that bad. I'll be fine soon." In truth, the sickness had taken a greater hold of him than he expected, but he hated to make Sakura worry.

"Hold still," she said. "I'll get you some water."

And so, it was her turn to protect him.

Sakura returned to his hut the next day to take care of him. Surprisingly, he found out that his words were right: it really wasn't that bad. By the end of the next day, he felt almost completely better.

"Don't scare me like that, Syaoran!" Sakura insisted. "You always push yourself too hard..."

"I'm sorry," he said. And he was. If only, he thought, things were different. A world without any pain or fear, a world for just the two of them...

Suddenly, a silence had fallen between them, broken only by the sound of the clock.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

He swallowed, thinking his thoughts from the other night. Abruptly, he sat up straight and yanked on Sakura's arm, pulling her close to him.

She was the one to speak first. "Don't you wish we could be like this forever? That nothing would ever change...?"

"Nothing?" He looked at her. "Nothing at all?"

She was looking back at him. His heart skipped a beat. "M-Maybe some things could change..." she said hesitantly.

She was about to burrow her head back down, but he did not let her. His hands flew to her hair and he drew himself even closer. Close enough, in fact, that he could feel her breath inside of his mouth and taste the sweetness of her tongue.

It took him a moment to realise he was kissing her. When she made a noise – something that sounded halfway between a surprised gasp and a mewl – he realised what he was doing and in that same instant, he drew back, more disgusted with himself than he had ever been.

He would have said something, but knew there was nothing to say. He knew that she was afraid of change, but here he was, ruining the innocence of their friendship with one swift move. He peered hesitantly into Sakura's eyes, fully expecting to see his loathing for himself mirrored there.

He did not find it.

"Oh, Syaoran..." Sakura breathed. "Is that how you feel about me?"

Heart in his mouth, he nodded.

Sakura smiled. It was a bright smile, but different somehow from her other bright smiles. It was like she had tilted it in a different angle and now he was seeing something entirely new in it that only he could see. He did not think he would ever find something he liked better than Sakura's smile except for this. This. It was enough to break down every defence he had ever propped up in himself.

"I feel the same," she whispered. "I was going to tell you on my birthday..."

He was horrified. He was anxious. He was delighted. There's no time, he thought amid a whirlwind of confused emotions. Even now, their relationship existed on fragments of borrowed time.

So he leaned forward and kissed her again, relishing the taste of her. He kissed her again and again until she responded and threw her arms around him.

And time stood still.

From there, it seemed as if everything progressed faster and slower than any other time he had ever known. Both tempos seemed like the most natural speed in the world.

The innocence of their trysts now gone, their relationship quickly took on a tone of sweet urgency. They met when they could and for the most part, it was like what it had always been. They did not need to probe each other out or act any differently because they'd had seven years to work all of that out. But something was gone that could never be replaced.

It was impossible for such a development to go unnoticed by those around them. They were young, and young love burned brighter than any other kind.

The logical result was that Touya was meaner to Syaoran than ever. He would never disregard any opportunity to call the young man a brat and to tell him to lay his hands off his sister. Even when Syaoran wasn't around, Touya had many complaints.

"Dump him already," Touya said to his sister.

Her answer was to stick out her tongue at him.

Yet for the most part, the grownups were remarkably tolerant of their relationship, approving even. When they walked through town together hand-in-hand, kindly old ladies would hail them and tell them what a lovely couple they made. Sakura's parents said nothing either way about the subject, but Yukito would tell her later that they were truly proud of their maturing daughter. When she informed Syaoran of this, his reaction was genuine astonishment.

"They don't mind? I thought, because you were a princess..." No matter what she said to him, Syaoran would never completely forget the difference in their social statuses.

Their greater intimacy afforded her a different kind of insight of Syaoran's inner mind. In those days, she thought she could understand every fleeting sentiment that he considered. It made her more anxious on those occasions when she couldn't read the expression on his face. Once, she confided about it with Yukito.

"Don't you think Syaoran's the type of boy who takes every burden on himself?" she asked.

Yukito agreed. "I'd say very much so."

"I don't like that," she huffed. "I'm starting to get this feeling that he's worrying about something and it's been worrying him for a while. He broods..."

At that point, Yukito gently took her by the shoulders and spoke comfortingly to her. "It's not because he doesn't care about you that he doesn't tell you what he's thinking. I'm sure he cares about you very much."

"I suppose..." she said uncertainly. Then she said, "I'd give him my everything."

"Same for him," Yukito told her. "I'm sure of it."

He did not know how very right he was.

They made a tiny little spherical world, just for the two of them. Every time they entered that little world, a little bit more of a part of Syaoran that she had never seen would surface. Inside every man there was another man, a hidden man of secret passions who was more beast than man, and Syaoran was beginning to realise his hidden man. She welcomed it, because at that same time, she was realising her hidden woman.

After they were spent, they would lie against each other and listen to the sounds of their beating hearts. It was as steady as the sound of the clock on the wall.

(In the dark, unbidden, the Black Wings on Sakura continued to spread.)