A/N: I'm going back to college soon, so I'm trying to post all the little plot bunnies I worked on over the course of the series. This is a one-shot, and it follows the CANON PAIRINGS – you have been warned!
"Kinomoto residence."
"Hello, Touya-san. This is Tomoyo. May I speak to Sakura?"
"She just walked out the door, actually. Can I give her a message?"
"Oh, of course! If she's free this afternoon, I was wondering if she wanted to go to that new bakery on Omodatta Street today. They have a chocolate-strawberry cake that I think she'll really like."
"That's very kind of you," Touya said slowly. There was a short pause, which Tomoyo knew better than to interrupt. "I'll tell you what. Today's Sunday, so I'm sure you have chores to do. I think Sakura will be out all day, so why don't I help you with your shopping, and we can pick up a cake on the way home. You'll be our guest for dinner tonight, of course," Touya added as an after-thought, as if it hardly needed saying. "I know Sakura will be home for dinner."
Tomoyo didn't miss a beat. "Well, thank you, Kinomoto-san," she laughed, her voice dripping real pleasure and fake politeness. "That is just too kind of you. May I meet you at the bus-stop by your house at 1:30?"
"Works for me," Touya agreed, glancing at the clock. That gave him plenty of time to finish up his chores, which – if he knew Tomoyo at all – was no happy accident. Tomoyo usually knew more than he gave her credit for, and he gave her credit for quite a lot.
…
Conscientious as ever, Touya was a few minutes early to the bus-stop, arriving just in time to see Tomoyo hop out of her mother's stretch limousine and wave away her body guards. He saw the femme fatales bristle when Tomoyo turned to Touya in greeting – he was sure that Sonomi had given the guards special instructions to be suspicious of all men – and relax when they recognized him as the Amamiya-bocchan.
"And where is Tsukishiro-san today, may I ask?" Tomoyo asked, smiling faintly, by way of greeting. Touya quirked an almost-grin. He and Tomoyo shared a lot in common – they were the only members of their surrogate family who were totally magicless, and they saw more than all the rest combined.
"I gave him the day off," he replied, sticking his hands in his pockets and adjusting his stride to account for Tomoyo's long, blue skirt and fussy white pumps.
Tomoyo smiled sweetly up at him. "You are very kind," she said happily. Touya dropped her gaze, embarrassed, and became even more embarrassed when he realized that his little sister's little friend was making him blush. But the truth was… well, if Sakura was growing up beautifully, then Tomoyo was two steps ahead of her, if for no other reason than to help her up. Tomoyo even looked more adult than she had just six months ago: her growth-spurt awkwardness was beginning to give way to adolescent grace, and she had finally set aside her frills and bows in favor of stream-lined dresses that showed off the best of her budding figure. She even moved with the kind of self-possessed poise which, so often confused with wealth and class, really stemmed from having the utmost confidence in the future.
"So, what have we got to do today?" Touya asked, pulling himself back to the present.
"Well, I imagine you need to go grocery shopping," Tomoyo said, a spark of mischief glimmering from deep within her dark eyes, "considering it is Sakura's turn to cook dinner, but you let her go out all day."
"I'll make her do all my clean-up this week," Touya said indifferently as his feet found the way to the super-market.
"I see," said Tomoyo's words. Liar, said her tone of voice. "I need to get a few yards of ribbon and some thread. I'm experimenting with different fabric textures, but I can't get the material that I want delivered to my house. You have to get it at the store."
"That's easy enough," Touya consented. "We can go to the fabric store first, take a break at the bakery to get the cake and then hit the grocery store on our way back. We'll have to walk a little out of our way, but the cake and cloth will keep better than groceries."
Tomoyo gave Touya a knowing, secret smile that immediately made him self-conscious. Recovering as only Touya could, he planted his eyes straight ahead, buried his hands a little deeper into his pockets, and quietly centered himself. He knew that Tomoyo wouldn't take offense at his reticence like most people would.
Anyway, Tomoyo was uncharacteristically silent today, as well. Usually she was, if not actually a chatterbox, then a conscientious conversationalist. Her relentless, polite, insightful enquiries could shame even the most reserved into conversation. But today, she seemed more than happy to just walk by his side in total, if companionable, silence, shooting quick glances up into his face as if to reassure herself that all was still, for the time being, well.
They reached the fabric store quickly, without the burden of communication slowing them down.
"You can stay out here," Tomoyo finally spoke as she paused in front of the door. "I won't be more than a moment or two, and I can't imagine you'll get more joy out of a fabric store than you will out of a nice spring day." Touya muttered his agreement, and Tomoyo briefly disappeared.
Touya helped the time to pass by trying to stand nonchalantly in front of the store window. You could say a lot with posture and body language, and as a man of few words he had found a talent for saying volumes with the set of his shoulders. He experimented briefly with, I happen to be standing here, and this happens to be a fabric store, but the two things are not related. Touya wasn't much one for out-right lies, though, even in his posture, so he moved on to I am here against my will. Even that didn't feel quite right, though – so, sighing, he settled for I am happy to wait patiently for this girl to get out of this store, and if you give either one of us a funny look about it, I am prepared to bite you.
He had been lucky so far today, though, he had to admit. In a suburb as small as Tomoeda it was a rare day when he didn't run into one of his classmates, and he was dreading the looks he'd get to be seen going grocery shopping with a girl. Being both high profile and a bit of an enigma, rumors were just a fact of life, but he didn't have to like it.
It ended up being a slightly longer wait than Touya was expecting. He was just beginning to wonder if he ought to check in on the girl when the bell attached to the store's door jingled merrily, and Tomoyo stepped out blushing like a radish. The reason for her discomfort soon became evident: she was holding not one, but two gigantic grocery bags full of cloth, ribbon and thread – and the look on her face was a strange cross between beatific and miserable.
"I'm very sorry to keep you waiting," she stumbled awkwardly, standing humbly just in front of Touya and dropping her head the same way that Sakura did when she thought she deserved a scolding. "I got… a little carried away…"
Touya couldn't help himself – the picture was just too adorable. Laughing softly to himself, he unhinged the girl still further by reaching down and plucking the shopping bags from her hands. She stuttered an assurance that she was fine handling the bags herself, which Touya simply ignored. He started down the road towards the bakery, smiling to himself, while Tomoyo trailed awkwardly behind him.
"I-is it really okay?" Tomoyo stammered for the fifth time as Touya held both bags easily in one hand as he pulled the bakery's door open for Tomoyo.
"Of course it's okay," Touya said finally. He had responded to her previous enquiries with a nod of the head or a simple, "Yeah," but he was beginning to see that it would be cruel to go on without giving the girl a real reassurance. "I'd be a really rotten escort if I let you carry this yourself."
"B-but – The groceries," Tomoyo stammered, her blush blazing up again as Touya politely guided her into a corner seat.
"I've had to carry heavier loads. Remember, I used to give the monster piggy-back rides," Touya teased her gently, and Tomoyo subsided into a red, embarrassed silence.
"Are we actually going to eat here?" she asked quietly after several long moments. There was a group of older girls in the other back corner that were positively goggling at her. Normally, Tomoyo was impervious to embarrassment, but she was already so flustered that she found the titters and glares to be very disconcerting.
"Why not?" Touya said, too-casually. He had followed Tomoyo's gaze, and was blushing a bit himself. "Don't worry about them," he explained hurriedly. "They're just girls from my class. I figured that we could use some sugar to keep our energy up while we get the groceries. We'll get the cake on the way out."
"That sounds like something Tsukishiro-san might say," Tomoyo said tentatively, beginning to recover her composure after several seconds of staring determinedly at nothing.
"Well, what can I say," Touya said flippantly. "When he's right he's right."
"You're very kind," Tomoyo whispered, but her words were engulfed by the overly-peppy greeting of the smiling waitress.
Touya ordered for them both, guessing correctly that Tomoyo was in no mood to make trivial decisions, and once the waitress was safely out of earshot settled himself down comfortably, giving Tomoyo a strange, appraising look.
"All right, Touya-kun," Tomoyo said some time later, surprising him both with the humor in her voice and with the informal honorific. "Out with it. Not that I'm not having a wonderful time, but why did you really invite me out today?"
Touya looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Am I being that obvious?" he asked a little self-consciously. "Wait, don't answer that. Um. Do you think that history repeats itself?" he burst in a rush.
Tomoyo blinked. "History itself shows us that it does," she replied carefully. "But what kind of history are you talking about?"
Touya squirmed, trying to find the words. "I meant more like… personal history. Like the history between our two families, in particular."
Suddenly, the blush had come roaring back up Tomoyo's neck and face, burning her ears and making even her shoulders feel hot. "You mean the history between my mom and your mom," she said quietly. Touya gave her a little nod, prompting her to continue. "Yes, I do think that history repeats itself," she was now nearly whispering. "I do think that love can transcend generations, and can spring up in people's children."
Touya was now looking distinctly unhappy. His arms were crossed in front of him, and he was glaring resolutely at the table.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," he said finally. "You see so much in others, sometimes I wonder if you forget to watch yourself. It's not fair to anyone that you love Sakura so deeply. It's not fair to her, having the pressure of someone's unrequited love focused on her at all times. It's certainly not fair to you, since your abject adoration is keeping you from finding love that could be returned. And it's not fair to the woman who will someday tell you that she loves you, pledging your heart falsely where it doesn't belong."
Tomoyo's face had gone from red to white over the course of Touya's short speech. She regarded him blankly for a long moment, lips pursed so tightly they were almost nonexistent, eyes going shallow and dull in pain. Then she bolted for the door.
She blew past the very confused waitress, who was currently on her way to deliver the double order of lemon cake to their table, and spared not even a glance at the shocked, giggling gaggle of Touya's classmates.
Touya sighed, his lips tugging downward, and rested his head in his hands. He had known she would react that way, but she was too much like a sister to him not to try.
His silent reverie was quickly broken by an enraged scream.
"ONII-CHAN, WHAT DID YOU DO?" Sakura roared, flinging the bakery door open with a definitive clatter. She raced the length of the store, dodging waitresses and patrons with acrobatic ease, and slammed to a skittering halt just in front of her brother. She wasn't even breathing heavily.
"Didn't do anything," Touya mumbled on automatic, turning his head away from his enraged little sister.
"Oh yeah?" Sakura half-shrieked, stamping her foot in her fury. "Then why did I just see Tomoyo race out of this bakery, crying, after she had been sitting with you?"
"It's true, Touya," Yukito had arrived on the scene. He had been held up by bowing and apologizing for Sakura's behavior to every patron and worker who caught his eye as he wound his slow way through the maze of tables. "I mean, usually you're not so tactless that people burst into tears after having a conversation with you – although I admit there have been times when I've wanted to…"
Touya stood up and relieved Yukito of the ludicrous load of grocery bags he was carrying, stuffing them into the seat that still contained Tomoyo's packages. He shot the other boy a grateful glance for trying to defuse the tension, and began to wave him into the seat just next to him, but then paused, placing a friendly hand on the other boy's shoulder.
"I'll tell you about it later," he whispered in Yukito's ear under the pretext of fixing the boy's collar. Meanwhile, Sakura had given an almighty hmph and flounced into the seat opposite her brother's, face set in an expression of terrible fury. "Did you have a nice Master-Guardian date?"
"Yes," Yukito said, knocking Touya's hands away from his perfectly-ironed collar with an affectionate swipe, although he made no move yet to sit down. "Although Sakura realized half-way through the elephant exhibit that she had forgotten to go shopping, so we had to race to the grocery store. We were just stopping by on our way home to pick up a cake for dessert. This place has a really good chocolate-strawberry gateau that I wanted Sakura to try."
Touya made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. He was still on his feet, looking at Yuki with an intense, but conflicted gaze. He glanced once into the far corner of the room – his classmates were still gossiping happily, each keeping one eye trained on him – and then brushed his lips, quickly and chastely, over Yuki's.
Yukito turned a fetching shade of scarlet. Touya plopped back down into his seat, and after Yukito had taken a moment to collect himself, he slid in next to him.
"What was that about?" he hissed, trying and utterly failing to sound angry. "Didn't you see who was in that back corner? That will be all over the school by tomorrow!"
"Let it be," Touya said indifferently, with a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Love that's accepted and returned is something to be celebrated."
"What has gotten into you?" Yukito groaned, hiding his face in his hands, but it was more than half a laugh, and they both knew it. Even Sakura looked somewhat mollified, but she had not yet deigned to uncross her arms.
"U-um, sir?" The waitress asked awkwardly, still holding the tray of lemon cake. "Do you still want your order?"
Touya nodded contentedly. "But make it five slices," he said.
The waitress boggled at him, and then ran her eyes over the petite little girl, the small fragile-looking man, and Touya. "Five?" she asked, as if she could not have possibly heard right.
"Five," Touya said firmly.
Totally pointless, just like the title. This may actually be my favorite out of the stories I wrote this summer. Let me know what you think, please REVIEW!