aisuru hito aisuru tame ni ikitekunda SEIYA by 'manda

"You know. Never saw a sky that red."

"No, never."

"And I never saw your eyes that green."

She smiled.

"Never?"

His eyes drifted close.

".. Maybe once .."

She was a vision in white. Tradition. Her eyes peering out from behind lace -- eyes like gems, like fresh homegrown vegetables -- something homely, something real. He touches her veil; the memory falls like uncooked rice.

The only white now is a hospital sheet wrapped around his body like her wings. Her still-little hands curved around his still-much-larger, much rougher, fingers. The only thing unchanged throughout the years, they'd both agree, was the soul that shone inside each of their eyes; hers the same bright emerald, his a wild wolf brown.

Syaoran knew Sakura still had many more moons to see, many more suns to watch rise and drop below the same horizon he would follow -- soon, tomorrow -- tonight, maybe?

Sakura had magic, Sakura had a lasting spirit. Where his skin was wrought with age, crevices and valleys skittering across the terrain of his body, hers remained tight; her hair was only faintly white.

Why do you still look so young? How can you still be this beautiful?

Without looking at him, her able hands wrapped around his coffee mug; she told him the answer in her comfortable silence.

"Your magic is still .. strong.

"You're still so strong. I'm not worried, you know."

She laughed hearty, like the child at heart she still was. But her brow furrowed suddenly, and she looked to him. Her grip tightened; his eyes opened carefully.

"I don't have any regrets. You know that. I'm not worried to leave you. I'm not worried to leave the children .. They're in good hands." Consequently he looked to their fingers, locked, joined -- as they would always be. Her pale starlight wedding band shone against his own.

Her fingers slowly lifted his wizened palm to her smooth cheek; Sakura's eyes misted with a haunted fog and she brought the tip of his index finger against her mouth. She kissed it once.

".. When I was very young. You remember the story I told you about soul mates? -- Souls, mating?"

His eyes had drifted close; his mouth rumbled its reply.

".. Mating, before people are even born. Sometimes we search all our lives and we never find the person we really mated with. Back when all this .." Sakura's knuckles glided over his spotted and aged wrist, "Body wasn't even thought of. My father told me that some people really believe that." She paused when he didn't move. ".. I believe that.

"I .. believe that I was one of the lucky ones. To find you." Sakura sighed gently; he could smell, feel the room fill with flowers, with cherries, with pink. "For my soul to find that soul. To find your soul."

Syaoran's eyes glittered opened; his white eyelashes smiled where his tired lips did not.

"But I don't know if it works both ways. Where I mated with you -- did you mate with someone else? What if you find her.. in that place in the clouds?"
He laughed. Sakura didn't.

"You'll be happiest then. So I have no regrets, either. Just be happy. And when I get where you're going .. When I --"

"Sakura."

You're the one I love most. That's all I wanted to say.

She stood there, her gentle eyes scared ..

Be careful on your way home.

"When I get there, too --"

"Sakura --"

Then we'll be together forever!

"I'll be there waiting for you. And then we'll wait for our children. And their children. .. I'm not leaving you. Just going .. to a place I can always love you. Where there's no limit. .. No .. time limit. Breath .. limit."

"Then .. when I get there, too --"

"We'll be as we always have. My soul .. " Syaoran's hand deftly patted against her own. "And your soul."

Cheeks red like fire. Eyes never making contact. Hands moist and body rigid.

But then he kissed her for the first time and he knew --

.. but then she kissed him for the first time, and she knew ..

I love you.

I love you.

"As long as it's warm .. there. I don't mind it so much. The waiting. China was always so warm." This time he managed a casual grin.

Sakura drifted over his still body -- this body that was still his, even so very changed -- and hovered over his carefully breathing chest. Slowly she lifted her leg, steadied herself ..

Sunlight on her hair, the first time he'd ever seen her in the morning -- fresh and energetic, ...

Touya is going to kill you.

You never woke me up.

I never wanted to.

It's still early --

So lets go back to sleep.

...and she slid against him. He made some attempt to move his body, to accommodate his only partner, and yet his bones resisted; she made due with the little space on the room 1019 hospital bed. It was enough; it would suffice. She needed nothing else.

Sakura listened to his slow heart beat in the settling quiet. Syaoran lifted his hand to her shoulder and gently made a motion to move her closer.
His eyes focused past the ceiling.

"You made my life ..." He laughed -- a shallow, breathless thing -- "A life."

And she smiled -- a sad, hopeful thing.

"I never loved but for you. Remember that. .. You always said I never .. was so good at romance. But I loved you .. differently inside than I showed outside. I -- always tried. And as my last attempt .. just be strong as you have been for me. You gave me .. Hope. And reason."

Her eyebrows rose to a line of distress against her forehead; the pinpricks of tears pressed against her eyelashes. She couldn't smile, but desperately tried for his -- her -- sake.

"And so .." He turned his cheek to her, lips against what he could find blindly in this pale, quiet, warm -- so very warm -- stillness that crept against his soul, in to his muscles, in to his breath .. She leaned the crown of her head in to his lips; he gently suckled a few long kisses. A tear curled down the taught, youthful skin of her cheek. "And so .." Syaoran murmured, eyes hidden in gray lashes, "Remember you're the one I love most." He sighed. "My .. number one,"

My number one is you. The one I love most ...

"... Is you."

And as if sleeping, his lip gently puckered -- his sagged, handsome face relaxed, and in one beautiful sweeping motion, the hospital room became eerily quiet as the last breath rolled past his tongue -- His tongue having tasted the sweetest candy, of love, of Sakura ... And she herself knowing only him against her mouth --- and against the sterile air, out past Sakura's breathless sob, and out past the blinds to the opened window --

-- out past the night air, rising -- rising, gently releasing the hands of his children, of his wife, of his family far off, .. Rising up to the heavy, high moon, rising to meet again with the lives of the past; in the stars he found a rosy light, some nebula that smelled of cherries and flowers. He never looked back -- she never looked up.

The one I love most ..

My number one --

And here on the 1019 hospital bed, Sakura kissed his face, her tears the only warmth left and now -- now -- she passed her palm over his closed eyes, still seeing his bright irises behind the thick white eyelashes. She smoothed a finger over his furrowed eyebrows and laughed at his serious expression -- a laugh that failed to become one, instead fumbling somewhere along a heavy sigh and a short cry, a whimper, a sob. She laughed and cried; Sakura pressed her forehead against his own.

You never woke me up.

-- I never wanted to.

It's still early ..

"You know .." She laughed, really, her wife's tears heating the gentle promises he left against her skin; she felt somewhere, deep inside her, the distance between their bodies dissipating, somewhere warm -- somewhere white hot and deep within her -- Her soul? -- inside her .. She felt her soul. And everything was all right. "All this time I was wrong.

"That was the most romantic thing I think anyone's ever said."

.. So let's go back to sleep.