Disclaimer: This is fan fiction. If I owned Card Captor Sakura do you think I would be writing this?
Summary: As Syaoran matures, his perception of love changes.
Warning: Slight slash.
Author's Notes: This story was inspired by Cephied Variable's fanfic Waiting for Magic. Reviews are nice.
Author's Notes 2: gah! ff(.)net is killing me! I can't seem to get the italics and bolds to work. Why??
Of Love
Seven-year-old Syaoran's first inkling about love came in the form of a young girl with no magical ability. She was fiery and bold to the point of brashness with a temper that could flare up in a moment's notice.
She had been crying over her escaped bird when he first noticed her and as any seven-year-old boy, he wanted her to stop crying so he comforted her in the best way he knew how: recapture the bird. He ran recklessly into the woods running here and there looking for the singing creature that would make the girl happy. Teardrop like water began falling from the sky and before Syaoran knew it, the small drops combined to make small, individual rivers while small hurricanes played with his hair.
He finally spotted the bird on a tree branch under the shelter of a single dying leaf. He knew it was dangerous to climb a tree, especially since it was during a storm as bad as the one roaring around him, but he wanted to make that girl stop crying. As he picked up the little bird, it hardly struggled.
Climbing down the tree, he idly wandered what it was like to fly. If he began to fall down, he could open his wings to stop his descent to the hard, cold ground. As it was, he didn't have wings, so when he landed on the ground reality reminded him of his dependence on the muddy earth.
He relished in the feeling of accomplishment. True, it had taken several windswept hours in the dark, bleak woods but he had finally recaptured the bird and stopped the girl from crying.
This time when she flung herself into his arms and started crying again, he thought she had somehow physically injured herself.
As the weeks passed, Meiling, for that was the girl's name, became fascinated with this enigma of a boy and started to spend more time with him. They were both sitting in one of the Li Clan's many patios quietly reading when she bursted out unexpectedly about an engagement to Syaoran.
Needless to say, the boy was surprised.
Meiling reasoned that since he loved her more than any girl, they should be engaged and if he found somebody he loved more than her than she would break it off.
"Got it?" she said.
"Do as you like," he replied.
Years later he would understand what she truly meant.
On his second precarious glance at the subject of love, ten-year-old Syaoran found to his dismay that he had developed a crush that made him act unpredictably. It surprised him, caught him unawares in its all-consuming flames of madness. Caused him to burn unexpectedly whenever the older boy was around.
Tsukishiro Yukito.
A seemingly harmless boy with soft features and kind eyes that made his stomach flutter with soft butterflies aching to get out of him to glide beside him gracefully with the gentle breeze.
Nobody ever suspected that he was actually Yue the Judge.
Yukito and Yue seemed to be total opposites of each other. Yukito was warm and earthy and innocent and above all, tangible; Yue-- Yue in all his pale reflected glory was cold and heedless to the earth and so utterly intangible with his moon-kissed wings.
As Syaoran faced Yue in the Final Judgment, he couldn't help being distracted by the moon guardian. Yukito. Yue. Yukito. Yue. YukitoYue. Who was ultimately real and whom did he feel attracted to in the end?
He lost that battle.
Not surprising really. He felt disappointed, sure he did but he knew that he was no match for Yue. That was clear enough since he put everything he had into that battle while Yue just seemed bored while attacking him, all the while shooting barbed insults that seemed to slice his too hot skin open for all to see; they cut the Li heir deeper than the icy arrows ever could.
After the Final Judgment, he came to terms with the fact that he was not enchanted with Yukito because he was Yukito; he was only attracted by the innate powers of the moon that Yukito harnessed because of Yue.
Then it was Sakura's turn. The vibrant green-eyed girl with so much raw magical power.
She won of course-- with a little help from Mizuki's moon power based bell.
Ten-year-old Syaoran reckoned that he didn't like her much, considering that she was in possession of the Clow cards, which rightfully should have belonged to the Li clan.
They had a rough start with each other. He fought with her and was her main rival before he grudgingly accepted her as the Mistress of the Clow Cards. But before that acceptance, he had to silently accept something else.
Eleven-year-old Syaoran thought he was falling in love with her.
And this time, unlike the innocence of Meiling or the hot jealously that marked his simple enchantment with Yukito, it felt like he was drowning.
He couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, couldn't even break to the surface and breathe a last breath before trickles crashed to waves and again to tons upon tons of liquidy darkness that seemed to push him into a watery grave.
Meiling's constant interference didn't help things either. Nor did Tomoyo's thinly veiled insinuations and 'help' actually helped him with his confused heart. Or with the butterflies in his stomach.
The arrival of Eriol Hiirigizawa did not help things either. The navy haired boy was constantly spending time with Sakura, being so kind and helpful and always managing to make her smile. Jealousy and rage built up and his temper and self-control came crashing to the ground, almost literally that one time when he fell from the tree into Eriol's arms. Embarrassment and a weird feeling in his stomach made him run when he came to.
It was also at that time that the Clow Cards were acting strangely and a new magical force with Clow Reed's aura arrived making Sakura turn all the Clow Cards into her cards. A confession followed soon after.
Imagine his surprise when he found out that that same infuriating boy was actually the half reincarnation of Clow Reed and was the same person attacking Sakura.
Twelve-year-old Syaoran confessed to Sakura in a park. A sweet scene surely, even when the girl confessed that her own heart was confused what with finding out that her own crush, Yukito's own number one was her brother, Touya.
"Won't you give me some time?"
Syaoran conceded and left but not without giving her a teddy bear.
When fifteen-year-old Syaoran came back from China, Sakura finally found what she thought was her answer.
"Yes."
Overjoyed was what he felt. Suddenly the waves receded and he felt for the first time that he had a chance to break to the surface and breathe. But they then crashed down on him again after the first few years of bliss before Sakura realized that her number one was Tomoyo and not Syaoran.
"I'm so sorry Syaoran," she said, "but you are not my number one."
It was snowing then and eyes full of pity plagued him.
Seventeen-year-old Syaoran had his heart broken on the winter floor but it soon healed with time. He was still good friends with Sakura and Tomoyo.
Surprisingly, Eriol was a big help during those stormy years. The British boy once again arrived in Japan minus a Kaho Mizuki when Syaoran was sixteen. Syaoran found to his surprise a friend in the navy haired teen and grew closer to him little by little. Talks about magical theory and how to improve one's magic had them discussing long into the night and Syaoran even slept over a few times. He also found out that he liked the company of Spinel Sun (and sometimes Nakuru).
Twenty-year-old Syaoran arrived to a shocking conclusion one day and really, it was almost expected and utterly predictable when he decided that he loved Eriol in a romantic way. Syaoran was almost certain that this was It, with the razor sharp butterflies and the feeling of hot and velvety, almost suffocating midnight clouding his senses whenever he thought of Eriol.
After several months after he came to his conclusion, he presented his raw and bleeding heart to Eriol one early morn, hoping that it would be returned and whole.
"I'm sorry, Syaoran… "
Syaoran suddenly threw himself at Eriol, desperately kissing him, almost trying to will his heart not to break again and Eriol allows him to, up to a certain point. When Syaoran pulled back he met a pair of pitying and slightly mocking eyes.
"You are mistaking friendship with love again, Syaoran," said Eriol slightly chiding him.
Syaoran shakes his head desperately, "No, no I'm not,"
And maybe he is, and maybe he's not but the important thing was that he thought so and maybe that's enough.
The average human doesn't know what love is, and Syaoran might be one of those humans but Syaoran knows that Eriol will indulge him in the end; it was Eriol's way of healing a broken heart. And Eriol will probably grow bored of this romantic tryst and find somebody better suited to him and leave and shatter his heart and Syaoran subconsciously knows this but still--
Still…
Unlike the dead fluttering wings that marked Syaoran's relationship with Meiling or the burnt out flame that marked his crush on Yukito, this midnight darkness of a love still clung to him ten years later at age thirty, always there never leaving even when the darkness began to cool. Even the sea that was his romantic love for Sakura dried up after a year into their break-up.
Maybe the darkness was enough to keep him flying. Syaoran will float on the wings of this heavy darkness; after all, Syaoran was the moon, and the moon always floats on dark starry nights, perhaps due to a faceless deity (or deities,) perhaps due to the Earth's gravitational pull or perhaps by magic.
And perhaps this isn't what love is and maybe it's twisted but Syaoran thinks it's love…
And it's enough.
owari