Uh, this is just a one-shot fic. Inspired by reading "Beautiful Alone" by
Ekai Ungson, which actually has very little to do with this story. Instead
it has to do with her final author's note.
Anyway, this is my dedication to the love between Syaoran and Sakura. Not the surface love that I see in a lot of fics, but the truer kind that lurks behind what is never said. It also is my dedication to poor Sakura, who has had, I think we should all admit, a rough life.
So read it and if you enjoy it, review!
The Source of Strength
She sat alone. She really was never alone. Not really. Everyone was always there, standing around her, protecting her from all the evils of the world she might encounter. She was relatively sure that they were harbouring her naiveté as if it would block out any of the pains that growing up and old and maturing would do. She didn't blame anybody really. Rather the opposite. She loved them and was grateful at how much care they put to her. But even with as much love as she received from them and as much as she herself felt for them, she wondered how long they would treat her like a child.
So Sakura sat alone in the infamous park where so much had happened to her. She sat as the heavens poured down their worst upon her. Her legs were bent at the knee so she could rest her weary head on them. Her clothes were soaked through and hadn't given up much of a fight to not become so. But they were simple summer wear clothes, nothing of Tomoyo's more than durable creation. There was nothing special about them that would protect her from herself.
And she sat in the open, giving herself to the full fury of the storm. She couldn't see more than a couple feet in any direction the storm was so intense. Lightening occasionally struck over the darkened clouds but that was nothing to her. She just wanted to sit. The madness around her, the absolute and unrefined chaos made her feel a little better.
It made her feel like perhaps she could survive by herself. Without anyone there to watch after her. Without two guardians bound by oath and something more to protect her with their own lives. Without a brother who treated her almost as a lover in his jealousy. Without a father who always smiled at her silly and incompetent mistakes. Without Tomoyo always watching from the sidelines and giving hope where hope was needed. Without Syaoran. Without her pillar of absolute strength who she would give anything for.
Syaoran. Syaoran who had done an impossible amount of things for her. Who had saved her time after countless time. Who had taught her by harsh example what she needed to be. Who had never failed to save her those many times she had neared death. Syaoran who loved her. Who was her other half. Destined to her, dictated by the stars she so carefully represented. Syaoran who was her everything and who she was most afraid of at times.
Everyone always talked about her sunshine disposition. How she never let the greater things in life bear her down. How she never gave up. How she tried so hard and persevered until everything was said and done. Everyone talked about her innocence and how she could make everything all right by simply uttering a short phrase. Everyone swore up and down that she was nearly perfect.
A perfect child perhaps.
But the time had come and gone for her childhood. It had left when she opened a weird book in her father's basement. It was gone the moment she accepted the Wand of Capture. Perhaps no one had ever noticed that. Her smiles had always been so genuine. Maybe they hid the truth from everyone and let them believe that everything was really fine. That she was still the same person she had always been.
Yet it just wasn't true. For too long at too young an age she had had to bear the weight of so much on her slim and weak shoulders. People had been getting injured because of her simple action. She had to work day and night, keeping no normal hours, to protect everyone. To protect people she didn't know. To keep safe those she did. Too soon did she have to face the weight of her whole community sent to the worst of hells. Too young did she have to fight single-handedly against the whole of the world disappearing before her eyes. She had fought with everything she had in her. She had fought with every ounce of her being.
And it had been enough. But only barely.
But would it have been enough if she had been alone? Would the scars and burdens she still bore be made worse if no one had been there to guide her, to hold her up? She didn't know. In her heart she hoped and believed that she could have done it without them. She wanted to believe that for all her power and for all that the man she loved most still envied her on a minor level, she wasn't a weak creature. That she didn't need to be around people. She didn't need to be coddled.
Yet, she was afraid this was very much the case.
Years had passed. She was an adult now. Yet, never had she struck out by herself. Never had she faced the odds all alone. Never had she had to see what it would be like to get out of a horrible situation all by herself. She had always had someone standing behind her, helping her. She had never been truly tried.
She was deathly afraid that she just wasn't enough. She was afraid that soon people would realize she just wasn't what she cracked up to be. That one day she WOULD be all alone and would be lost, unable to defend herself. She would be defeated easily and that would be the story of her. She would be gone. Gone and lost because she was weak and had to rely on others.
But it was so hard not to. She was so tired. She just had too much to bear. Or so she had told herself when she was still a child, still young in age if not mind. But she was full grown now. She should have to shoulder her own strengths. She was afraid of being weak but staying in a situation that allowed her to was the worst way to become strong.
She didn't know when she had decided she was going to leave. Perhaps the idea had just come upon her so gradually that it had no real beginning. But it had a finish. She had quietly made preparations with her bank account and made hotel reservations in Tokyo until she could find somewhere else she needed to be. To become strong. And now the time was finally upon her.
Now she was leaving. Leaving everything she loved and new behind. Perhaps when she came back she could be strong. She could be the pillar of support that everyone had been to her.
She could be worth what everyone thought of her.
Sakura stood up slowly, moving with precise and contemplated movements, as if the world were watching. Closing her eyes she tilted her head to face the down pour and let it wash away the few tear tracks that had made their way down her cheeks as she had sat. With determination she lowered her head, faced forward and took her first step to her new journey, opening her eyes to what she would have to face.
And stopped short.
Standing just within sight through the harsh rains, Sakura could make out the figure of the one it hurt to leave most. The one person she had hoped to avoid until she was safely out of town, leaving only letters behind. Syaoran. He was staring at her, panting slightly. He had obviously been running to find her. His always uncontrollable hair was glued to his face, barely fringing into his amber eyes. Eyes that looked straight into hers. Full of pain.
For a moment they just stared at each other before he rushed to her and grabbed her upper arms in his strong hands. The grip, though desperate, was not a harsh one. It didn't hurt her in the slightest. He would never hurt her.
"Syaoran, what are you doing here?" she asked, worried. Had something happened?
"I was at your house...answered the phone...asked for confirmation...about a hotel room in Tokyo...for Kinomoto Sakura," he stuttered, the words coming out stumbled out one on top the other full of confusion and hurt.
Sakura just stared at him, unable to think of what to say.
"Why are you leaving me? Did I do something wrong?" he asked at last.
Instantly she felt horrible and brought up her hands to caress his cheeks. "No, Syaoran. You did nothing wrong. I did."
"What could you have done? You don't do anything wrong. You are Sakura!" he babbled, desperately clinging to her. "Why are you leaving, Sakura? Tell me!"
"It's something I have to do, Syaoran. I promise I'll be back though. I just have to do this. I need you to understand. I had to understand when you went back to Hong Kong for so long. I need you to understand. Please."
Syaoran stared down at her pleading eyes. His eyes were completely unreadable and for a moment she was afraid he wouldn't let her go. That he would make her explain herself. But at last he nodded and stepped away from her. A sort of lost look flitted over his features as she stepped past him. She could feel him turn to watch her leave, his eyes steadily staring into her back.
She was just about to fade into the rain when he grabbed her arm again. Almost violently he turned her to face him. Before she could speak he captured her mouth in a passionate kiss. It was devouring, desperate. She clung to him, savouring a last moment before she left. At last she pulled away and tried to break free of his grasp but he wouldn't let her.
"No! I can't let you leave, Sakura," he panted.
"Why not? Why can't you let me leave? I need to go!" she pleaded.
"You can't go! If you go, I'll.... I can't live without you here Sakura!" he nearly shouted. His voice full of longing and desperation. "You are my sun in the morning, the air I breathe, the moon at night and the stars that lead my way through life," he began, babbling. Desperately searching for the right words to show just how much she meant to him. "You are my very life! My soul! I need you! Without you...I am weak. I'm just nothing without you. You are my strength. Please, god, please don't leave me," he begged at last. Sinking to a depth of desperation he had never reached before in his life. His pride gone if only for to prove his point.
Sakura stared at him with wide eyes as he finished his plea. He was panting, his breath coming in great uneven gulps. And the look in his eyes. He seemed so desperate. As if someone told him that he was about to die in mere moments and he was begging for his existence. She had never seen him like this before.
In all the years she had known him, in all the years they had loved each other, he had never shown her something like this. He had always been open and honest about his love for her. Always telling her as much as she wanted to hear it how he adored her. She had never thought otherwise or had any reason to doubt. But in all those years she had wondered just why he loved her so much. What was it about her that he loved so much, so unerringly?
And as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his in a kiss even more impassioned than the previous, a kiss full of promise and relief, she knew. All those years she had looked upon him as her guiding light and the pillar to lean on, he had seen her the same way. She was to him as he was to her. They were each others strength and each was weak without the other.
Sakura finally understood how strong she was.
(A/N: wow. My little written in twenty minutes out of pure inspiration and delirium story got 4 reviews in less than a full day. I am honoured. And since I had originally planned to reedit when I had found my brain and English skills once more, I figured I would post commentary to my reviews. That and discuss what the semantics of this story were so as to hopefully answer questions before they are asked.
The Storm: Uh, most of my stories have storms in them. I think it's because I live in a place where is rains a lot. However, there was a purpose to this story having a really harsh storm. First, because sitting alone in a storm always shows a sense of desperation. No one with an ounce of sanity sits in a storm without some reason for being there. Second, because utter chaos can frequently bring out the most interesting parts of a persons mind. Which this whole story is, but I'll address that after this. And Third, because when a storm is really heavy, visibility is at a minimum and I wanted that. Sakura was in a small world where no one could see her. She was in essence alone with herself.
Oh and Hitokiri-tomoe-san: It would have been completely possible for her to travel to Tokyo in a storm from Tomoeda because Tomoeda was always made out to be a suburb of sorts to Tokyo. She would have gone by train. Not plane. Grammar: This is the kind of story I write that would make any and all of my English teachers want to beat me. Sentence fragments everywhere. But all grammatical errors that are still left in there (because I fixed all non matching tense errors already) are intentional.
The Point: This is not a narrative really. This is Sakura's mind. That's why everything is jumbled around and there are points brought up that are never actually detailed on. It is just supposed to be her thinking. And if anyone can remember their thought processes while they are upset then you would realize that it's close to the format of this story. It's just here and there and everywhere without real connection. So any incontinuity is also intentional as well as a few lines that are never really explained.
Syaoran's cheesiness: This was changed a little from the original draft because, well, I wrote this at 4 am. I didn't have everything like I wanted it. BUT there is a point to it. He is being overly cheesy and overly sappy in a degree that most people would call 'surface love'. But that's if you take it from context. If you realize that Syaoran is NOT the sort of person to just out and out beg for something like that. Not the kind of person who could fully and easily express himself no matter how much he loved her, then you would realize that this is a true sign of how much he loves her.
Anyway, thanks for reading this. Perhaps I'll put up a few more one shots. Who knows.
And thank you Hitokiri-Tomoe-san for your wonderful review. I'm glad you think I weave words well. I think it's the only thing I can do well some I'm glad other people can appreciate them.)
Anyway, this is my dedication to the love between Syaoran and Sakura. Not the surface love that I see in a lot of fics, but the truer kind that lurks behind what is never said. It also is my dedication to poor Sakura, who has had, I think we should all admit, a rough life.
So read it and if you enjoy it, review!
The Source of Strength
She sat alone. She really was never alone. Not really. Everyone was always there, standing around her, protecting her from all the evils of the world she might encounter. She was relatively sure that they were harbouring her naiveté as if it would block out any of the pains that growing up and old and maturing would do. She didn't blame anybody really. Rather the opposite. She loved them and was grateful at how much care they put to her. But even with as much love as she received from them and as much as she herself felt for them, she wondered how long they would treat her like a child.
So Sakura sat alone in the infamous park where so much had happened to her. She sat as the heavens poured down their worst upon her. Her legs were bent at the knee so she could rest her weary head on them. Her clothes were soaked through and hadn't given up much of a fight to not become so. But they were simple summer wear clothes, nothing of Tomoyo's more than durable creation. There was nothing special about them that would protect her from herself.
And she sat in the open, giving herself to the full fury of the storm. She couldn't see more than a couple feet in any direction the storm was so intense. Lightening occasionally struck over the darkened clouds but that was nothing to her. She just wanted to sit. The madness around her, the absolute and unrefined chaos made her feel a little better.
It made her feel like perhaps she could survive by herself. Without anyone there to watch after her. Without two guardians bound by oath and something more to protect her with their own lives. Without a brother who treated her almost as a lover in his jealousy. Without a father who always smiled at her silly and incompetent mistakes. Without Tomoyo always watching from the sidelines and giving hope where hope was needed. Without Syaoran. Without her pillar of absolute strength who she would give anything for.
Syaoran. Syaoran who had done an impossible amount of things for her. Who had saved her time after countless time. Who had taught her by harsh example what she needed to be. Who had never failed to save her those many times she had neared death. Syaoran who loved her. Who was her other half. Destined to her, dictated by the stars she so carefully represented. Syaoran who was her everything and who she was most afraid of at times.
Everyone always talked about her sunshine disposition. How she never let the greater things in life bear her down. How she never gave up. How she tried so hard and persevered until everything was said and done. Everyone talked about her innocence and how she could make everything all right by simply uttering a short phrase. Everyone swore up and down that she was nearly perfect.
A perfect child perhaps.
But the time had come and gone for her childhood. It had left when she opened a weird book in her father's basement. It was gone the moment she accepted the Wand of Capture. Perhaps no one had ever noticed that. Her smiles had always been so genuine. Maybe they hid the truth from everyone and let them believe that everything was really fine. That she was still the same person she had always been.
Yet it just wasn't true. For too long at too young an age she had had to bear the weight of so much on her slim and weak shoulders. People had been getting injured because of her simple action. She had to work day and night, keeping no normal hours, to protect everyone. To protect people she didn't know. To keep safe those she did. Too soon did she have to face the weight of her whole community sent to the worst of hells. Too young did she have to fight single-handedly against the whole of the world disappearing before her eyes. She had fought with everything she had in her. She had fought with every ounce of her being.
And it had been enough. But only barely.
But would it have been enough if she had been alone? Would the scars and burdens she still bore be made worse if no one had been there to guide her, to hold her up? She didn't know. In her heart she hoped and believed that she could have done it without them. She wanted to believe that for all her power and for all that the man she loved most still envied her on a minor level, she wasn't a weak creature. That she didn't need to be around people. She didn't need to be coddled.
Yet, she was afraid this was very much the case.
Years had passed. She was an adult now. Yet, never had she struck out by herself. Never had she faced the odds all alone. Never had she had to see what it would be like to get out of a horrible situation all by herself. She had always had someone standing behind her, helping her. She had never been truly tried.
She was deathly afraid that she just wasn't enough. She was afraid that soon people would realize she just wasn't what she cracked up to be. That one day she WOULD be all alone and would be lost, unable to defend herself. She would be defeated easily and that would be the story of her. She would be gone. Gone and lost because she was weak and had to rely on others.
But it was so hard not to. She was so tired. She just had too much to bear. Or so she had told herself when she was still a child, still young in age if not mind. But she was full grown now. She should have to shoulder her own strengths. She was afraid of being weak but staying in a situation that allowed her to was the worst way to become strong.
She didn't know when she had decided she was going to leave. Perhaps the idea had just come upon her so gradually that it had no real beginning. But it had a finish. She had quietly made preparations with her bank account and made hotel reservations in Tokyo until she could find somewhere else she needed to be. To become strong. And now the time was finally upon her.
Now she was leaving. Leaving everything she loved and new behind. Perhaps when she came back she could be strong. She could be the pillar of support that everyone had been to her.
She could be worth what everyone thought of her.
Sakura stood up slowly, moving with precise and contemplated movements, as if the world were watching. Closing her eyes she tilted her head to face the down pour and let it wash away the few tear tracks that had made their way down her cheeks as she had sat. With determination she lowered her head, faced forward and took her first step to her new journey, opening her eyes to what she would have to face.
And stopped short.
Standing just within sight through the harsh rains, Sakura could make out the figure of the one it hurt to leave most. The one person she had hoped to avoid until she was safely out of town, leaving only letters behind. Syaoran. He was staring at her, panting slightly. He had obviously been running to find her. His always uncontrollable hair was glued to his face, barely fringing into his amber eyes. Eyes that looked straight into hers. Full of pain.
For a moment they just stared at each other before he rushed to her and grabbed her upper arms in his strong hands. The grip, though desperate, was not a harsh one. It didn't hurt her in the slightest. He would never hurt her.
"Syaoran, what are you doing here?" she asked, worried. Had something happened?
"I was at your house...answered the phone...asked for confirmation...about a hotel room in Tokyo...for Kinomoto Sakura," he stuttered, the words coming out stumbled out one on top the other full of confusion and hurt.
Sakura just stared at him, unable to think of what to say.
"Why are you leaving me? Did I do something wrong?" he asked at last.
Instantly she felt horrible and brought up her hands to caress his cheeks. "No, Syaoran. You did nothing wrong. I did."
"What could you have done? You don't do anything wrong. You are Sakura!" he babbled, desperately clinging to her. "Why are you leaving, Sakura? Tell me!"
"It's something I have to do, Syaoran. I promise I'll be back though. I just have to do this. I need you to understand. I had to understand when you went back to Hong Kong for so long. I need you to understand. Please."
Syaoran stared down at her pleading eyes. His eyes were completely unreadable and for a moment she was afraid he wouldn't let her go. That he would make her explain herself. But at last he nodded and stepped away from her. A sort of lost look flitted over his features as she stepped past him. She could feel him turn to watch her leave, his eyes steadily staring into her back.
She was just about to fade into the rain when he grabbed her arm again. Almost violently he turned her to face him. Before she could speak he captured her mouth in a passionate kiss. It was devouring, desperate. She clung to him, savouring a last moment before she left. At last she pulled away and tried to break free of his grasp but he wouldn't let her.
"No! I can't let you leave, Sakura," he panted.
"Why not? Why can't you let me leave? I need to go!" she pleaded.
"You can't go! If you go, I'll.... I can't live without you here Sakura!" he nearly shouted. His voice full of longing and desperation. "You are my sun in the morning, the air I breathe, the moon at night and the stars that lead my way through life," he began, babbling. Desperately searching for the right words to show just how much she meant to him. "You are my very life! My soul! I need you! Without you...I am weak. I'm just nothing without you. You are my strength. Please, god, please don't leave me," he begged at last. Sinking to a depth of desperation he had never reached before in his life. His pride gone if only for to prove his point.
Sakura stared at him with wide eyes as he finished his plea. He was panting, his breath coming in great uneven gulps. And the look in his eyes. He seemed so desperate. As if someone told him that he was about to die in mere moments and he was begging for his existence. She had never seen him like this before.
In all the years she had known him, in all the years they had loved each other, he had never shown her something like this. He had always been open and honest about his love for her. Always telling her as much as she wanted to hear it how he adored her. She had never thought otherwise or had any reason to doubt. But in all those years she had wondered just why he loved her so much. What was it about her that he loved so much, so unerringly?
And as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his in a kiss even more impassioned than the previous, a kiss full of promise and relief, she knew. All those years she had looked upon him as her guiding light and the pillar to lean on, he had seen her the same way. She was to him as he was to her. They were each others strength and each was weak without the other.
Sakura finally understood how strong she was.
(A/N: wow. My little written in twenty minutes out of pure inspiration and delirium story got 4 reviews in less than a full day. I am honoured. And since I had originally planned to reedit when I had found my brain and English skills once more, I figured I would post commentary to my reviews. That and discuss what the semantics of this story were so as to hopefully answer questions before they are asked.
The Storm: Uh, most of my stories have storms in them. I think it's because I live in a place where is rains a lot. However, there was a purpose to this story having a really harsh storm. First, because sitting alone in a storm always shows a sense of desperation. No one with an ounce of sanity sits in a storm without some reason for being there. Second, because utter chaos can frequently bring out the most interesting parts of a persons mind. Which this whole story is, but I'll address that after this. And Third, because when a storm is really heavy, visibility is at a minimum and I wanted that. Sakura was in a small world where no one could see her. She was in essence alone with herself.
Oh and Hitokiri-tomoe-san: It would have been completely possible for her to travel to Tokyo in a storm from Tomoeda because Tomoeda was always made out to be a suburb of sorts to Tokyo. She would have gone by train. Not plane. Grammar: This is the kind of story I write that would make any and all of my English teachers want to beat me. Sentence fragments everywhere. But all grammatical errors that are still left in there (because I fixed all non matching tense errors already) are intentional.
The Point: This is not a narrative really. This is Sakura's mind. That's why everything is jumbled around and there are points brought up that are never actually detailed on. It is just supposed to be her thinking. And if anyone can remember their thought processes while they are upset then you would realize that it's close to the format of this story. It's just here and there and everywhere without real connection. So any incontinuity is also intentional as well as a few lines that are never really explained.
Syaoran's cheesiness: This was changed a little from the original draft because, well, I wrote this at 4 am. I didn't have everything like I wanted it. BUT there is a point to it. He is being overly cheesy and overly sappy in a degree that most people would call 'surface love'. But that's if you take it from context. If you realize that Syaoran is NOT the sort of person to just out and out beg for something like that. Not the kind of person who could fully and easily express himself no matter how much he loved her, then you would realize that this is a true sign of how much he loves her.
Anyway, thanks for reading this. Perhaps I'll put up a few more one shots. Who knows.
And thank you Hitokiri-Tomoe-san for your wonderful review. I'm glad you think I weave words well. I think it's the only thing I can do well some I'm glad other people can appreciate them.)