It was when I was saying good bye to him, walking him home after soccer practice. that I noticed it first. The moon was full that night, the cherry blossoms falling in a gentle rain around us, and he glanced up to admire the sight. Always the romantic.
His grey eyes shone almost silver in the pale light, shadows in their depths that I had never noticed, or maybe just ignored, before. A gleam, an echo, something that just wasn't the Yuki I knew. Something, alien.
He invited me in for tea, he always does. Kind and considerate, my, I mean, is Yuki, and this time, I don't know why, I accepted. Maybe it was magic, or the moonlight dappled on his grey hair that told me to, for this night, I could give in, let myself feel what I wanted to, let myself drift away on wings of silver and dream. Maybe. Just this once.
We chatted about inocuous enough things, how the matches were going, how school was, and finally drifting onto the topic of my kid sister, Sakura. The brat has a crush on Yuki, it's as plain as anything to anyone with the bare minimum of sense. She doesn't qualify. As the conversation drew to a close though, and I stood up to leave, thanking Yuki for the tea, a flash of silver darted across his eyes.
"Tell Sakura to be careful."
The voice, so subtly not-Yuki, set off the sense of, wrongness, that I'd had all night and coalesed it into a tight ball in my stomach. I narrowed my eyes, standing from where I'd knelt to slip on my shoes, and moved up to him, searching his eyes. "Yuki?"
He smiled, almost langourously, before his eyes closed and he fell in a dead faint. I caught him, grabbed at him, before he hit the floor, but before I could do more than that a soft silver slight expanded from his shoulder blades, and it was all I could do to lower him to the ground before I backed off from, I don't know what it was, surprise, fear, awe, maybe none of them, maybe all.
He didn't touch the ground. A pair of huge white wings, feathered and soft, expanded abruptly to cocoon Yuki's body as I watched. Then the light dimmed, and they unfurled.
And the feeling I'd had about Yuki, the feeling that Yukito wasn't fully /right/, the feeling there was a reason /I/ was his best friend. finally, finally settled as a tall man, white hair sweeping between his wings, and down the white clothing to the floor, turned silver cat-pupiled eyes to me and smiled.
"You figured it out, Toya. I'm impressed. But I'd expect no less from the brother of the Card Captor."
The impersonal tone shook me for a moment, and I glared at Yuki, no, the man, for a moment, before I backed down under the regal glance. "You're not human. What are you? Where's Yuki?"
"And there I was congratualting you. I am Yue. The Judge. That means nothing to you, and will continue to do so for some time. I am Yukito, or would it be better to say Yukito is I?" He glanced out the window, and I noticed how the moon glistened of his pupils, seeming to answer to his call. "Yukito knows nothing of who he is, he is but a shell." One hand raised to forestall my exclaimations, "And you will mention none of this to anyone. Especially your sister. For the sake of the love Yukito bears you, I will not force you to obey unless I must, for Yukito is part of myself."
He stopped, abruptly, as my face turned pale. I could feel the blood draining at his words as the shock sank in. "For the sake of..." I whispered, barely hearing my own voice as it passed through dry lips.
The silver-haired man raised an eyebrow. "You didn't realise? Honestly, I thought I'd have more sense than that. But I am not one for shouting love songs from the roof."
"Yuki, no, Yue, no," I stopped, bewildered, running my hands over my face. Yukito, loved me? And this man, this regal, tall, elegant, angel was Yuki? I barely had time to breath before a breath of wind wrapped around me, and I looked up to see the solumn soft face of that angel mere inches from my own.
Then his lips touched mine and I was lost. His voice whispering around me.
"Yukito may be shy, but I am not. Come, Toya, tonight let us both dream."