Title: Cliche
Theme: 5 distance

Summary: The requisite 'Sakura-chan-is-getting-married' angst.


Higher.
The wind screams through the links of the chain and she can feel it plucking at her hair, combing it into snarls and snags and wild abandon.
Higher.
Her toes block any view she might have of the rest of Tomoeda. Her skirt is fluttering to spite decency as she folds and unfolds her legs on the swing.
Higher.
Her hands sting from gripping the thick metal, and her legs ache like they never did running around with a camcorder. But she was ten, and now she's not.
Why? Why can't I get high enough!
Once, when she was little; younger, braver, wholer… she would have jumped off by now. She would have thrown herself at the sky with the other children, knowing that the fall wouldn't hurt enough to stop them from doing it again.
But it's too high now, and not high enough. Too far from the ground, too far from the stars, and her dignity, her apprehension, her inebriation, her evening gown… they're all holding her back and she can't trust that everything will be fine any more.

Jump anyway.

"Are you alright? I thought an angel fell from the sky."
"I'm tired of being Nadeshiko, Hiiragizawa. Clow Reed should have learned more pickup lines than that."

And she is. Mama doesn't need her charcoal smooth locks any more. Sakura doesn't need a mother, someone to make clothes and memories for her. Sakura is getting married after all, and asked so nicely that Tomoyo teach her how to sew the frogs onto a mandarin collar. She slips off of him like a ghost, her hair releasing its hold without fuss, and she sinks to her knees, graceful to the end, because who is she without her poise and pained perfection? If she hacked off Nadeshiko's hair, hid her cut amethyst eyes, threw her camera off a bridge, burned the blood, sweat and brocade of the old traveling wardrobe, physically choked on all the love that wasn't hers…
What do I have left?
"If you wish to throw away an entire life, Daidouji-san, then you are left with an entirely new one. Surely you understand the principle of equilibrium."
"I dread to ask why you are still here." She finds she is not too far away from her left shoe and pulls it to her.
"Well I had been admiring the view, and then my sense of chivalry reminded me that we rescue beautiful women in distress, not comment on their choice of lingerie."
"Surely your paedophilic teacher will not approve of peeking up your classmates' dresses," she snarls with polite venom. She's glad the heel is so very strong because her hands don't want to stop pretending it is his neck.
"She's neither mine nor my teacher," he replies cheerfully, still sprawled on the pavement, lenses glinting in the moonlight. "It was mostly for you anyway. Studies show that a healthy dose of ogling is sure to fix any woman's self esteem issues. You can even ask Yamazaki-kun."
"How much of that was truth?" she asks instead, because she doesn't know to how to explain why her heart feels lighter. Or she could blame it on statistics.
"It's an interesting thing, Daidouji-san, but sometimes one finds, even after overcoming the trials of unconventional love, that it isn't love."
She looks at him half in confusion, half exasperation, as if she believes him exceedingly silly to expect her to be able to decipher his mysterious act when she can't remember where she put her other shoe.
"I said, Tomoyo, that even though I could have stayed with her, I found I didn't want to. I imagine she found the same for she didn't protest. How's your English?"
She's being spun in circles sitting down and the furthest 'up' is are the rims of his glasses. They have been edging closer to each other unconsciously, and she discovers that she has torn her dress even as she finds herself back on his legs, and his arms are around her, cufflinks pressing solar flares into her back.
"Ne, Tomoyo, if I said I saw a happier version of myself in your eyes, would you let me kiss you?" he whispers, crisp English softened by the waves of her hair.
"I might, if you're being original and honest at the same time, but what does my English have to do with anything?"
"Payment, naturally. I relearned how to balance karmic credit with some help. If I help you get your new life, you have to become part of mine. In England."
"I think you're a bit of an idiot," she decides.
"I've been called worse." Impatience gets the better of him, and he leans forward to lick the taste of champagne from her lips. She pulls away and eyes his dazed expression.
"Can I count that as a down payment?" she asks innocently.
She finds herself smiling a little when he laughs until he can't breathe any more.
"I have to take you to Yuuko's at some point," he tells her when he has the breath for it. The real smile on her lips beckons him and he kisses her again to seal the deal.