Author: Elf Asato
Written: June 5 - July 4, 2005
Summary: AU-ish. Three Seals form an unexpected friendship.
Disclaimer: I don't own CLAMP or X.
Notes: Spoilers for Viz-released manga up until Subaru's eye thing. Written in a strange, concise style. Thanks to denpagirl, bomsok, sakanagi, and finmefiant on Livejournal for reading this in its various stages, and various other friends for helping me out with the title. This whole thing was really spawned from mention about how there wasn't much decent shoujo-ai that didn't sound like it was written by a perverted old man.
Timeline: Zero through Five are placed at various points from after Kamui makes his decision until Subaru's eye incident, and Six is after.
By Elf Asato
Part One.
Zero.
"Why do you look so sad?"
"I'm not sad...just tired."
"Oh." Pause. "Is there a difference?"
Karen Kasumi stared at Yuzuriha and decided that she wanted to become friends with this girl.
One.
On their first outing, Yuzuriha dragged Karen with her to get some ice cream.
"Would you look at that?" Yuzuriha squealed in delight in the ice cream parlor. "So many flavors and colors...! I can't decide what I want. We never had this many choices back home. What do you want, Karen-san?"
It didn't take Karen long to answer. "I think the cherry jubilee would be nice, so I might get that..."
This pleased Yuzuriha. "Oh, cherry jubilee sounds so happy and wonderful! I'm going to get that, too. ...Hey, we could even share!"
"It would be cheaper anyway, so why not?" Karen smiled as she agreed.
Yuzuriha's eyes brightened considerably as she exclaimed at how happy she was, but when she went to pay, Karen stopped her.
"I'll get it," she smiled sweetly as she rummaged around in her purse for her billfold. "It's on me."
"No, no," the girl answered quickly. "I was going to pay for you anyway. I mean, I asked you to come with me, didn't I? So don't waste your money."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"All right..." Karen muttered uncomfortably as she righted her purse back on her shoulder. "But next time, I'm paying, okay?"
Yuzuriha beamed and practically imploded with happiness at the thought of a 'next time.'
Two.
"You're getting close with Yuzuriha-san," Subaru remarked as he messed with his open-faced sandwich without any intention of eating it. "That's good. She's lonely, so you being friends with her is nice. She needs an older woman to look up to, especially at her age."
"Oh...she told you that she'd been lonely?"
"No. But I kind of sensed it. I mean, I think I know what her life has been like, living in that temple with her grandmother and all. It was similar with me."
"...Even with a sister, were you lonely?"
He took a few seconds to answer. "I didn't know it at the time...but yes, I was. Terribly."
"Oh..." Karen murmured, taking things in. "I didn't think someone like her could get lonely. I always assumed that she was always so happy and perky, even if no one was there to watch."
The smile that Subaru didn't quite flash at Karen was bittersweet and almost apologetic. "No one is immune to loneliness, Karen-san."
"Yeah...but she had always seemed like some sort of superhero...er, heroine. Her behavior now makes sense, though. She's attention-starved, isn't she?"
"Horribly so."
Karen played a mischievous grin upon her cherry lips. "Speaking of starvation...when are you going to stop playing with your food and actually eat it? You're worse than Arashi-san!"
He gave her a wilting look.
"Fine, starve, whatever," she giggled as she threw up her hands dramatically in mock exasperation. "...By the way, you should try to be friends with Yuzuriha-chan since you've got so much in common and understand her and all. I think you'd both benefit from that."
Shrugging, Subaru replied honestly, "I can't stand her."
"...Why not?"
"She reminds me of my sister," he answered softly, and Karen didn't push the topic further.
Three.
"Can we talk?" Yuzuriha asked one day as she and Karen sat together on a park bench.
"Aren't we already?"
"No, I mean, really talk. Like, talk talk. Girl stuff, you know?"
"Ah, girl stuff," Karen said with an experienced smile. "That explains why you didn't try to invite Subaru-san with us this time."
"...If it were just about girl stuff, I still would have invited him!" Yuzuriha giggled and partially covered her mouth with a hand out of mild embarrassment. "He surprises me with those sorts of things."
"He does me, too." A broad, laughing smile. "...So...it's not just about girl stuff?"
Yuzuriha took a second before explaining, "Well...it's like this: when I first came to Tokyo...that was the first time I'd met anyone outside my family who could see Inuki. I mean, all throughout school my classmates all thought I was crazy because of him. But when I met that guy here...and later all you guys, I was so happy. So...this guy I met...who could see Inuki..."
"...Go on," Karen said once she realized Yuzuriha needed a little prodding.
"Well, I really like him. I've been seeing more and more of him...and I think I like him, but I'm not sure of what my feelings are. I mean, I really thought about it and it occurred to me that I could just be feeling like this because he was the first to see Inuki... But, anyway, I want to tell him my feelings, but at the same time...there's someone else I like and have feelings for, so I'm not sure of what to do."
"A classic situation!" Karen exclaimed, half playfully and half with regret. "It's unfortunate that our gender is so prone to that."
"...Guys experience that too, though, don't they?"
"I suppose...but they don't obsess over it like we do, I guess. Anyway, I...I know how you feel. Actually, right now I'm caught in a similar situation."
"You are? You never told me that!" Yuzuriha huffed almost indignantly.
To this, Karen only gave an apologetic smile and replied, "I didn't want to burden you. But anyway, you could try and see which one you'd like to be with most. I mean, a friend of mine from work, when she's torn between two guys, always thinks to herself which guy she actually sees herself with down the road. Will it be worth confessing to the other guy, you know?"
Yuzuriha furrowed her brows. "Um...I guess I could try that... But Karen-chan, what about your situation...? Um..."
She only shrugged and smiled, saying simply, "I'm torn between people who are woefully preoccupied with others."
"...Unrequited love sucks."
She laughed. "Yes, it does. ...But it's getting late, isn't it? We should probably get you home before the others worry."
"I guess," Yuzuriha smiled softly, though she looked like she had more to say.
"Although...it just ended up being girl-talk, didn't it? Subaru-san could have come after all..."
The smile in the girl's eyes decayed.
Four.
"It's a shame Karen-chan couldn't come with us...but oh well! We can have fun without her, can't we? Just us, right Subaru-san?"
"I guess," he murmured as his voice lacked confidence.
Yuzuriha was not to be deterred. "It's good, though, that it's just the two of us. We can go shopping for Karen-chan's birthday that way."
"I didn't know her birthday was coming up."
"Um...it's not. But without her with us, we can go shopping for it!"
Subaru thought it would be impolite to roll his eyes.
"So where should we go first? Do you know what type of music she likes? Because we could go to Virgin and get her a CD. I think I read on a circular that they were having a sale."
"Listen, Yuzuriha-san, I have to be at an appointment at, uh...right now, so--"
"Is my company really that intolerable?" she asked evenly without any of her usual, even forced, cheer.
He panicked slightly. "I...I never said that."
"Don't lie to me, Subaru-san, please. I know you only tolerate me for Karen-chan. You can be honest. I know you don't like me very much."
A long and uncomfortable pause. "I'm sorry," he said weakly, "...confrontation isn't my thing."
It wasn't hers, either, but she didn't see why he couldn't be honest with her. "Well, whatever," she said with a sad smile. "We just have to tolerate each other for Karen-chan, right?"
Wracked with guilt on several levels, Subaru nodded.
Five.
"Sorata-kun thinks it's odd that of all people, the three of us have been hanging out together lately," Karen said conversationally as she, Subaru, and Yuzuriha sat at the kitchen table drinking tea.
"It's not so odd," Subaru shrugged and toyed with a tea bag. "We actually have a few things in common."
"We're lonely people who aren't anymore," Yuzuriha said in all seriousness, but a few seconds after she said it, Karen started giggling and even the corner of Subaru's mouth threatened to twitch into a smile. "Wait...what's so funny?"
"Nothing, really," Subaru answered calmly, "you're just right, that's all."
She neither understood nor pressed him for an explanation.
"And," Karen said with a mischievous glint in her eye, "we also all have at least one eye set on someone we can't have!"
"Wait, why can't I have Kusanagi-san?"
"Because, in addition to being an Angel, he's far too old for you, Yuzuriha-san," answered Subaru.
"Besides," Karen added with a smirk, "he's big and hairy and in general just not aesthetically pleasing."
"Heaven forbid a man be unattractive, Karen-chan," Subaru said as the corner of his lips tugged up into a smile behind his teacup. "And he's not even all that bad."
Strangely enough, this was not a point up for debate to Yuzuriha. Instead... "Kusanagi-san's not hairy!"
Karen began to giggle playfully. "But how would you know?"
"Don't be vulgar," Subaru chastised lightly.
Her giggling immediately stopped and she gave him a strange look. "I meant his back could be hairy, and how would Yuzu-chan know this because she only meets him casually and has never seen him with his shirt off? ...What did you mean?"
Subaru immediately flushed and Karen resumed laughing.
"Wait...what?" Yuzuriha asked, but Subaru told her not to worry about it.
Six.
"Hey Subaru-san?" Yuzuriha anxiously said in a soft voice as she peered into Subaru's room from the space the half-open door gave. "Can I talk to you?"
"...Sure," he murmured from his spot, sitting on his bed with a cigarette between his lips. "Come in."
"Thanks," she said and took a seat beside him on the bed. The fact that he was shirtless and still had the bandage over his eye didn't faze her. "Um, Subaru-san? Have you...ever confessed to someone your feelings for them? Like, romantically."
He took a drag from his cigarette and took a few moments to answer. Finally, "Almost. Sort of."
"What do you mean?"
"I was going to tell this person that I loved him, but... Before I got around to it, he broke my arm and told me that he felt nothing for me." Pause. "Oh yeah, then he killed my sister." That last part he said deadpan.
She had already known his story, but not in this context. "That's...awful. Really, really awful. I had no idea you had been in love with him before."
Subaru gave her an odd look. "How did you think I came to be in love with my sister's killer?"
"...I don't know. I just thought you were weird or something."
He didn't hesitate to roll his eyes then. "Anyway, that's been the extent of my love life. Now, were you going to tell Kusanagi-san your feelings? Is that why you asked?"
Yuzuriha's cheeks reddened but she shook her head. "I've done a lot of thinking, and...I sort of think it was because he was the first person I met who could see Inuki. I was so happy then...and I guess I thought it was love when it was really just friendly affection."
"Just because it's not sexual or romantic doesn't mean it's not love. There are different types of feelings like that...and who's to say they're not love as well? I mean, I truly hate Seishirou-san - I really do - and you wouldn't think that hate could coexist with love like that, but I also truly love him with every fiber of my being, so even though what I feel for him vastly differs from the traditional notion of love, it's still love for me. Whole, unconditional love."
"...Every fiber of your being, Subaru-san?"
Subaru narrowed his eyes. "What about it?"
She tried not to smile. "But that's so...corny."
He rolled his eyes again. "Yeah, well, that's love."
"...Now that I think I love Kusanagi-san again, it's got me confused because...there was someone else I thought I loved... Great, now I have to think about it and choose again."
"Wait...why do you have to choose? Who says that you can't love two people at the same time, even romantically?"
Yuzuriha stared at him. "Well...uh. It's not nice to the other person. I mean, jealousy conflicts arise and stuff. Besides, can you really divide your love honestly like that? What if you love one a little bit more than the other?"
"...I think love couldn't give a damn if it were nice or not, believe me. But...love is love. It's not like you get a limit on how much you can love. If you love one person, just because you start to love another doesn't mean that you have to love that first person less. ...In addition to Seishirou-san, I love Kamui very much as well, but just because I love Kamui doesn't mean I love Seishirou-san any less, and vice versa."
"But...isn't Sakurazuka-san jealous of Kamui-san?"
"Yes."
"And doesn't Kamui-san hate Sakurazuka-san?"
"Yes. ...But I hate him, too, so..."
"Er...isn't that mean to both of them?"
Subaru sighed. "Love really doesn't care."
Yuzuriha was beginning to think it was really a bad idea to go to him for love advice.
"But," he continued, "my love for Kamui...it's neither romantic nor sexual. It just...is. So love can come in many forms, and you shouldn't write off your love for Kusanagi-san just because you have feelings for someone else."
"Um...I think...you might actually be right about that, but still... I think I need to re-examine my feelings and everything."
He just shrugged.
"So, uh, you don't have romantic or sexual love for anyone?" she asked. Though Subaru's two objects of love were male, and she had known this for a while, the word gay hadn't entered her mind yet.
"Of course I do. I never said I didn't."
Yuzuriha's mind finally began to turn. "Wait...you want to bone the Sakurazukamori?"
Her choice of words rendered him very red and speechless.
"Uh...Subaru-san?"
"Er, yes? Um, sorry, your language actually kind of caught me off guard..."
She flushed. "Oh, sorry. It's just that that's what we say at school. Er, a stupid teenage thing, you know? Word fad and all."
"You're fourteen, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I guess kids said stuff like that at that age when I was in school. I don't know, I never really heard," Subaru murmured.
"So you didn't use any euphemism for, er, sex or anything? You just went out and said it?" she asked.
His brief laugh was bitter. "At that age, I had only the vaguest notion of what sex was. My euphemism would have been intense blushing. ...I was what you'd call a late bloomer in nearly every aspect."
"Oh...but you're able to talk about that stuff openly now, right? I mean, you are now, aren't you?"
"I guess...but not really. Around other people I still blush, but with friends..."
"Wait, you consider me a friend?"
"...I have to admit, I didn't like you at first. But then as I saw more and more of you, I realized that you were different than I thought, so yeah. We're friends now, aren't we?"
Yuzuriha beamed. "Yeah! We are, we're friends! I-I'm really happy that you told me that."
"Well...thank Karen, I guess. Anyway, uh..."
"So do you?"
"Do I what?"
"...Want to bo-er, have sex with Sakurazuka-san? Do you?"
Subaru's cheeks tinted red. "Even for a friend, that's an awfully personal question, isn't it?"
"Well - you brought it up!"
"I did no such thing."
"You big liar, you did too."
"Don't you have school tomorrow? Shouldn't you be in bed?"
Yuzuriha smiled. "Yeah, I guess. But Subaru-san?"
"Yes?"
Her smile faded slightly as she asked, "Just because you want to...be sexual with someone..." She blushed. "That doesn't make love any less real, does it?"
Subaru shook his head. "No, of course, not, Yuzuriha-san. Love is still love."
The smile revived as she stood up and laughed, "Okay, well, as you said, it's a school night and...um, thank you Subaru-san. A lot." She hugged him. "Good night."
"Good night."
End Part One.