Disclaimer – I don't own it.
Part IV
"Oh Tomoyo! I'm so sorry," Eriol cried out dramatically. "I never should have let you go. You're the most important person in my life; you're what makes my life worth living. These past few days have been hell on me – hell, I tell you – and it only took losing you to realize how much you meant to me.
"I should have known better than to let you go. I thought I needed space when really the only thing that I ever needed was you.
"Please forgive me Tomoyo," he finished bending down on one knee. "I never meant to hurt you, and I only wish I could take back all the awful things I said. There is no excuse for my behaviour and I hope you accept my apology and let me make it all up to you as best I can."
"Ok," Tomoyo replied thoughtfully as she looked down on him from where she sat. "Now let's try it once more with feeling."
"If you ask me, Miss. Tomoyo, I found it very convincing," the driver called from the front of the limo as they stopped at a red light.
"Are you sure Arthur?" she asked. "It has to be extremely convincing if these girls are going to buy it. I mean, it has to be Oscar worthy material if we're going to fix all of Eriol's mistakes."
"I'm sure Miss," Arthur replied turning back quickly to show how sincere he was. "If I didn't know any better I'd be sure it was for real."
"Good," Tomoyo said happily. "How far are we from the mall?"
"You've got enough time to go through it once more."
Tomoyo smiled. "This time Eriol, let's try to do it without the gagging reflex."
Touya sat uncomfortably bent over his desk in semi-darkness. The only light in the room was the small desk lamp shining over his shoulder and onto his masterpiece.
"Ow," he muttered as he punctured himself once again.
He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath trying to retain the poise needed to get this right. And he just had to get it right, there was too much on the line right now for him not to.
'It's all for Nakuru,' he reminded himself as he calmly picked things up where he had left off. 'This is what she deserves.'
Why did it have to be so hard? Sakura and Tomoyo made it look so easy; they were doing it long before he was. I mean, if a bunch of twelve year olds could do it shouldn't it be easier for him?
But nothing is ever easy for the non-artistic male with the sewing needle, especially when the task at hand involves sewing the name of your beloved into the chest of a miniature teddy bear. And before you ask, he had been told – several times – that there are people you can pay to do it for you, but I guess he just felt that it would be more personal if he went through the pain himself.
It was very important to him that Nakuru knew just what she meant to him. He didn't want to have to live with himself if he just let her go without even putting up a fight.
She meant too much to him. How could he not fight for her? There was so much more to lose in not fighting that he was actually willing put his pride aside and get on his knees and beg Eriol to leave her with him.
So, he was going to fight for her, armed with nothing but an obviously hand sewed teddy bear and a few notes he'd scrawled on an old Chinese takeaway napkin. It wasn't much really, but what else had he to offer other than his heart; that was hers long before he even realised he had given it away.
He needed her, because without her he was empty and incomplete; so, as he laboured under the dim light of his desk lamp, he prayed to every god he could think of that it would be enough. That he would be enough.
Tomoyo walked into the malls food court with her head held high and a placid smile on her face. It took every ounce of her will power not to smirk with triumph as she ran over the details of the plan in her head.
'First things first,' she thought cunningly to herself as she walked over to a fashionable coffee bar in the corner and ordered a double strength mochaccino.
The coffee was necessary for two reasons. The first being, that it would look somewhat suspicious if she just randomly sat down at a table in the food court without any food. The second reason was as part of their performance, also known as Tomoyo's revenge for having to put up with all the rumours and the implications that she would actually even consider sleeping with George Michael. As luck would have it, part of the dialogue involved her threatening Eriol with hot coffee and she hadn't yet made her decision on whether or not to actually follow through with it.
So, essentially the coffee was a prop. But that didn't make it any less delicious.
As Tomoyo waited for her drink, she made a subtle surveillance of the food court. It was of dire importance that she found the perfect strategic position, or the make up performance of the year would be in vain. All the same, she was sure she wouldn't have to try so hard to make it seem believable if Eriol weren't so much of a ham.
Finding said position was much easier than she had imagined. As luck would have it, there was an empty table between Hannako Satchi, undoubtedly the biggest gossip in school (and perhaps even the world) and a table of girls from the Junior Varsity squad. She couldn't have found a better audience if she'd planned it in advance. These girls would ensure that news of the makeup would spread like wildfire, getting around the school in time for the party.
However, for the gossip to really get around, it had to be worthy. And the only things worthy of such widespread muttering were scandals and the truth, especially if it was even juicier than the rumour it was dispelling.
Thus, Tomoyo is resorting to the scandalous 'truth' of their break-up, and this time it was going to be Eriol's fault.
Tomoyo smiled at the cashier as she was handed her drink, and made her way to her table, paying no attention to her desired audience as they began to whisper and giggle in her general direction. She looked over the edge of her mug as she sat down and took a sip of her coffee.
That was the signal for Eriol to appear and make his acting debut. She had to make sure that she had their attention before things really got interesting.
There was a sudden surge of noise in the food court as everyone tried to catch a glance of some sort of commotion coming towards them. As it got closer, Tomoyo, Hannako, and the cheerleaders could make out nothing more than a blue haired creature of sorts crashing into tables, chairs and trays until a dishevelled Eriol stood before them, shirt half hanging out his pants, hair a mess, jacket hanging off his shoulder and spaghetti sauce all over him.
It had taken a lot of convincing to get Eriol to, as he had so eloquently put it, "deface his clothes", but the effect was just so astounding that Eriol could see how significant it was. The image of him now, shirt tails and all, was so obviously opposed to his usual attire that anyone could see straight away how distraught he was.
The dishevelled-ness really made the character, but all the same, he couldn't help but be a little annoyed. He now had to rethink his whole outfit for tonight, a) because people had seen it, and b) it was dirty; but more importantly, he now had spaghetti sauce all over his favourite pants. Many people - including Eriol himself on numerous occasions - had remarked on how good his butt looked in those pants and he really didn't want to lose that.
He made a quick mental note, 'spare no expense on dry cleaning. Pants like these are worth every penny.'
Eriol stopped a few meters from Tomoyo's table where she sat feigning shock and curiosity as she watched her 'ex-boyfriend' stand, panting madly in the middle of the food court looking like something out of a Broadway musical. Every eye within a 10 meter radius was staring at him, just waiting to see what he would do next.
'And people say I have a flare for the dramatic,' she scoffed to herself as she prepared for Eriol's dialogue.
Eriol's face suddenly took on an indistinguishable expression that was supposed to be relief - or something suspiciously like it - as he finally spotted her waiting for her dramatic, and most certainly overdue, apology. Eriol ran quickly to her side, dropping to his knees and taking her hand as though it were one last lifeline ready to save him from himself.
"Tomoyo, my darling, I'm so glad I've found you at last. I've been looking everywhere, I need to talk to you," Eriol exclaimed delivering his lines with such over-dramatic pretension that they almost seemed hollow.
In response Tomoyo sneered at him as she removed her hand from his in the fashion of someone who was removing their hand from up a cow's backside. "Well, I don't want to talk to you," she replied as she tried to wipe every trace of Eriol from her hand before it sunk in. "Quite frankly, I don't want to hear anything you've got to say to me, Hirigizawa."
A low murmur erupted from the crowd in response to the harshness of her words and the clear sign of just how little respect she had left for him. Once again, Tomoyo had to resist the urge to smile. This was exactly the response she was planning for, and now that she had their attention she was going to make it worth their while.
"Please Tomoyo," he begged, still on his knees and reaching once again for her hands which she kept out of his reach. "If we could just go somewhere private, then I could explain everything. I . . ."
"Explain away Eriol," she snarled cruelly as she glared openly at the boy before her, "because this is about as private as it's gonna get."
The crowd seemed to surge forward in one fluid, almost singular motion, as everybody tried to get a better vantage point.
"My dearest Tomoyo," Eriol began, apparently attempting to divulge the details of whatever sordid affair that broke them up. "I never meant to hurt you, you have to believe me when I tell you that hurting you is the last thing I ever wanted to do. It was all just an idiotic mistake and . . . "
"Oh was it now," Tomoyo interrupted, cutting him off with a look of reproach that would silence even the bravest of men. "So it was just a mistake when you accused me of being in love with my best friend's boyfriend, only for me to discover that you had been making out with Jenni Zoutamen from the AV club?"
Her audience let out a communal 'urgh' at the very suggestion of such an act. Jenni Zoutamen was a social leper. She was one of the biggest geeks in school and to top it off, looked like her face had been run over by a steam roller. Rumour had it, she made out with the frogs in the science lab in the hope that one of them would become a prince; what difference was there is kissing Eriol?
A look of shock and disgust replaced his feigned desperation. He hadn't been expecting that. Tomoyo seemed to be caught up in the moment and was resultantly, drifting away from their carefully rehearsed script. Well two could play at that game. Tomoyo wasn't the only one who could think on her feet.
"I did no such thing, Tomoyo," Eriol began, quickly pulling himself from the edge of social suicide. "I admit that I did kiss Ammika, but that was when I thought you were with Syaoran and I wanted to get back at you. And what with your ridiculous obsession with plaid, I didn't know how else to get through to you. Now that I know better, I realise how immature I've been about this whole situation and I just hope you can find it in your hear to forgive me."
Tomoyo resisted the urge to cringe and continued with perfect precision.
"But why couldn't you just believe me when I told you that it wasn't true?" she exclaimed in response, her voice heavy with heartache and tears ready to break. She was not yet prepared to let this come to its happy conclusion; especially not while Eriol was painting himself as a misdirected victim of jealousy and mistrust. Even Othello couldn't pull that off. "Do you think so little of what we have, of our friends? Do you think so little of me?"
"I don't know what came over me," he replied. "I was just so afraid that it might be true that I couldn't think straight. I love you so much Tomoyo that the thought of losing you killed me inside.
"These past few days have been hell for me. I tried so hard to hate you for all the things I was sure you had done, but all I could think about was how much I missed your smile, and your touch, and your eyes, and the very sound of your voice."
Their audience let out a collective awwww. If Tomoyo wasn't taking him back, well they certainly would. But then, even Tomoyo could not resist the dreamy smile that spread across her face. I mean, if they had actually broken up she would have most definitely taken him back after that speech.
"So here I stand before you Tomoyo," Eriol continued, looking desperately into her eyes, searching for something that would give him the hope to continue on, "just praying with every fibre in my being, that you will take me back in spite of everything I've done. You mean more to me than I ever thought possible, you give my life meaning and I know that it would be bleak without your presence.
"I can't believe it took losing you for me to realize just how much you mean to me. If you can find in your heart to forgive me Tomoyo," he said sincerely as he got down on one knee before her. Their audience gasped in anticipation, as like Tomoyo they sat on the very edge of their seats, "I know I'll never do anything to compromise our relationship like this again."
"Oh Eriol," she gushed happily as she fell into his arms.
"I'm just so glad to have you in my arms once again," he replied. "I was so sure I had lost you forever and that I'd be forced to spend every waking day without you Tomoyo, my reason for living. But now . . ."
He was cut off by a swift jab to the ribs.
"You can stop now," Tomoyo muttered under her breath as they stood up and began to make their exit.
The audience was torn between crying and applauding as the happy couple walked away. Tomoyo smiled to herself, silently commending herself on the show that they had put on.
'I give it two hours', she thought to herself. She was sure they had given the school something to talk about and the news should be around by the party.
And to think she had just saved Eriol's life. That boy didn't know how good he had it.
End of Part IV
I just completed this story so while I'm still in a generous mood I'm going to put up the chapters one by one. There are only two chapters left plus an epilogue which is in line with one of my other stories – although I won't say which because you'd easily work out what I meant.
Anyway, please review so that I know I'm not just wasting my time and there is someone other than me still reading this.
