1-7: Confidant

"...then the toy mouse darted out from under the couch and in through the door, and the cat poked his head out from behind the couch I was sitting on to sneak after it. I reached down to give it a small scratch behind the ears, but I ended up scaring the poor thing so much, it jumped literally five feet into the air!"

Tomoyo couldn't help but smile to herself as Sakura related the tale to their new walking companion. Sakura even went so far as to laugh at her own story, articulating the cat's acrobatic movements with her hands as she went. For as far as Tomoyo could tell, her dear friend didn't seem to be suffering any visible trauma from what had just transpired. Sakura had said that she had been hoping to make some new friends this week, and as such she seemed to be very much enjoying this Reios person's company. Even Tomoyo herself was finding his presence to be agreeable, despite that she was still feeling insecure about any intentions that he may yet be harboring. Sakura's good mood was obviously starting to rub off on her again.

"The thing is, the cat must have been at least this fat, "Sakura added, spreading her hands apart by about a fifth of a meter to measure out what looked to be a fairly sizable animal, "and he was really, really old too!

Reios's mouth curved up in amusement, but it was Tomoyo who ended up asking the question, "A cat that big? Is it really possible that it had that much energy?"

Reios chuckled as he recalled something, "You wouldn't believe how much a cat could run circles around the house without tiring. Even after old age starts to set in, most will still jump on and off of anything they can possibly stand on, looking for someone to pet them. I know mine does."

Sakura suddenly turned towards a gate set to the side of the road they were traveling on, halting the conversation as they arrived at her home. She lifted the latch and opened it slightly to allow herself through, then turned to bid Tomoyo and her new friend a good night, "Well, thank you very much, again, for helping us today. If there's anything I can do to repay you, anything, just let me know!"

Reios held up his hand to stop her, "No, that's quite all right. I appreciate the offer, but I only did what was necessary. Your gratitude is enough for me."

"How about our dinner plans for tomorrow night?" Tomoyo threw in unexpectedly, which reminded Sakura that she had been invited over by Tomoyo's mother, Sonomi, for dinner the next evening.

"Hey, that's a wonderful idea! Maybe I can help with the cooking, too! How about it, want to come?" she asked excitedly, turning to Reios with an optimistic face. Reios was hesitant to the idea, however. An evening to dinner with what would hopefully become two good friends sounded great, but he also didn't want to force his presence upon them, especially considering what they had just been through. It was enough for him that they had allowed him to walk them home. To be treated as the hero, as such an event was likely to cause, would only award him with an admiration he did not need, nor deserve.

Sakura, ever polite however, took his hesitation as a decline to her offer, "Oh, but you must be busy with something tomorrow..."

"Uh, no, no, I don't have any, uh, well..." he stammered, trying to work his way out of the hole he had just wordlessly dug himself into. Chivalry be damned, but he just could not deny someone a request if they happened to be female, and a disheartened one at that. What made it worse was that he knew that he would have to accept Sakura's offer now, because he would otherwise just end up making an idiot out of himself in an attempt to get out of it. Saying "no" in a direct and controlled manner was far from being one of his strong points, anyway. To that end, he replied embarrassingly, "Bah... Okay, when and where?"

That bright smile returned to Sakura's face in an instant, something that he expected he would start seeing a lot more of in the next little while. In a way, he wholeheartedly did want to attend, though he still did not want to enforce the impression that he was some kind of hero. The contradiction of desires was annoying the hell out of him. Yet this would be a good way to get to know them better, he supposed. Still being relatively new in town and all, friends were something that he was sorely lacking in.

"My mother has invited Sakura to an evening dinner," Tomoyo explained, swinging her backpack around in front of her to dig through it for a leaf of paper and a pen, "It is a rare occasion that Mother has the luxury to spend her time at home, and she has not seen Sakura in quite a while, either. We plan to have it ready for around six-thirty, but feel free to show up early. I am sure that Mother would like to meet with you."

A moment of silence spanned through as Tomoyo drew a quick sketch of the bus route to take, as well as where to disembark. Accepting the leaflet from her, Reios stood there for a moment to try and memorize the route and location, thinking he knew what all the squiggles of letters meant, but finally he just pocketed the note. He would have to pull out a traveling map later to better discern the directions.

"Well then, if that's settled, I'll see you both tomorrow," Sakura noted cheerfully, her bright smile still locked into place, "Good night!"

"Good night," her two friends repeated back in unison. They stood their ground as Sakura walked up the short path to her house's front door, calling out her return as she opened it. All sound from the energetic voice was cut away as the door clicked shut behind her.

A tension began to grow in the air as the two left behind continued to stand there at the gate, both unsure of what to do, and yet both feeling that they should react to something. Just to have something to do, Reios eventually placed one hand on his hip as he drew the note back out from his left pocket, holding it between his thumb and forefinger in an attempt to, once again, discern the location that Tomoyo had just drawn. The bus route seemed somewhat familiar to him, but he eventually just gave up on it.

He turned to Tomoyo, a defeated look on his face, "Alright, you know, I'm completely terrible with street markers and addresses here. If you would like, I could see you safely home as well, and then I could just memorize the old fashioned way on how to get there."

He half-expected her to want to travel home on her own, as he had sensed a kind of mistrust from from her a few times from before, when he had directly asked her a question while they were traveling from the park. He was thus surprised when she answered without hesitation, "Sure, I don't mind. I suppose that addresses here can be a bit confusing, especially to those that are new to them."

There wasn't a speck of that mistrust in her voice, now. Her eyes also revealed no sense of reservation or fear, but instead a kind of acceptance. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that her friend, Sakura, had just taken to friendship with him so easily, but he would never really know. All the same, it made life easier knowing that he would not have to convince every single person that he wasn't out to take advantage of a bad situation. Still, the sudden change in this black-haired girl was a bit of a concern, but he could pry into that once he was more comfortable in his knowledge of his new friends.

"For starters, the nearest station for the bus route you need is actually nearby here, this way," she explained, pointing the way down the street back where they had come from. He recalled the path that was inset with cherry trees, and how it connected to the actual street for vehicles and city travel. Then he recalled a bus station sign that had the route he needed stamped onto it, and laughed at himself as he pieced together what he needed to find his way.

That still left him with not a singular clue as to what point to get off of the bus at. He sighed dejectedly to himself as he defeated his own success.

He raised his hand slightly in the direction they were to proceed in, "After you."

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The bus rolled on after the two had disembarked, leaving them to momentarily stare at a black, iron fence that was protecting a secondary fence of tall, green hedges. He then strolled along beside Tomoyo as she led the way to her home, familiarizing himself with the terrain and land markings as they went. Having to memorize street names would just get him lost later, something that he feared would easily happen were he to later spontaneously try and find his way back to either here or Sakura's house without having any landmarks to rely on. The damned street signs in this place were just so confusing.

"By the way," Tomoyo asked suddenly, cutting into the relative silence of the springtime ambience, "I don't believe I caught your surname. I'll need to let the gate keeper know who to expect."

"I wish I could," he replied, without pause.

She stopped to turn and look at him, not quite sure that she had heard correctly. Reios soon stopped for himself a few paces further up when he noticed that Tomoyo had come to a halt. He turned to question her delay, but then realized that his comment must have sounded considerably strange.

"Er, that is... when I finally moved over here, well..." he hesitated a moment, trying to decide on how to word it, "before I left home, actually, I, uh... well, renounced... my family name."

A thousand questions swarmed unbidden into Tomoyo's head about such a circumstance, of whether this was actually true, and of how he could say it so simply. But not only did she want to leave such questions for a quieter setting, she also did not want to make him feel uncomfortable in public. Locking a few choice questions into the back of her mind, she made sure to save them for the next evening's gathering, where she could soften their meanings over a cup of tea and the company of friends.

With a soft nod to acknowledge his admittance, she started up on her way again. The gate keeper would just have to deal with it.

The veritable silence and soothing calm of nature's sounds carried on throughout their slow walk along the fence-lined sidewalk. The familiarity of this walk, which she had taken for almost every single day of her life, was enough that she could have done it in her sleep. Ultimately, it allowed Tomoyo's thoughts to begin to wander aimlessly. Her mind eventually picked up on recent events, and she once again began to reflect on the distance that was starting to build between her various friends. Tomoyo's concern flared especially for the specific one she had narrowly avoided losing merely because of simple academics, and she had no problem admitting that it was pure luck that her mother's bribe had paid off, a stroke of luck in itself that they had actually been given that chance. Then, with the day's events having unfolded as they had, Tomoyo began to worry as to whether friendship was as fragile as some people said it was.

The somber mood that was building up in the air was not lost on Reios, as he looked with a side glance at the deepening expression of gloom and loss that was building on Tomoyo's face. Eventually he just couldn't take it anymore.

"Is something wrong?" he asked of Tomoyo, snapping her out of her reverie with a shock. She had to double-check her condition just to realize that she had actually spaced out on him.

It forced her to realize that Reios was speaking out of concern for her. Which was strange, as she didn't think that he would actually want to hear about her petty problems, especially considering they had just met. That he would actually think to ask of them was, admittedly, something of a curiosity to her. But there was also something about him. An air of understanding, she guessed, that she seemed to just... identify with. How she had come to this specific conclusion about the personality of an individual she had only just met, she had not the slightest clue. All the same, she later considered that these assumptions were perhaps the reasons why she then told him what she did.

"No, not really," she started, the words emerging from her with a guarded tone, "It's just, well... have you... Have you ever had a... a best friend that you were worried about? Someone that you thought you might never see again?"

He smiled gently, guessing on where this conversation was trying to go, "I can't say that I have, directly, though I suppose leaving behind those select few I cared about counts. But what about it?"

Tomoyo took in a deep, calming breath, before continuing, "Today, at the park, before you had intervened... I came across a scene that will probably haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. The one thought – that I might never see Sakura again – had shot through my mind, and... and I was literally frozen with fear at all the possible outcomes. It was bad enough that, because of us entering high school, I had already considered that I might not be able to be around for her as much. After today's events, it just seemed so much more realistic that I could eventually lose her. What made it all the worse was this pervading feeling that I was powerless to stop it. She is my... best friend, and I don't think I could handle that."

Tomoyo suddenly realized that she was babbling quite openly about her emotions to a person that was still a practical stranger to her. She took up a tight control of her spiraling thoughts before she could say more, and gave Reios an encouraging smile, "I apologize, I've said too much. I'm sure you don't want to be hearing about my personal problems."

He shook his head, quickly waving off her apparent embarrassment, "No, no, it's all right, really. Sometimes, it's good to be able to just let go of the things that worry us the most. Besides, I'm a good listener. It's what I do. Back home, I often found myself listening to the confessions of others just because I was there to listen. So, if there's something to say, then say it... such as, you're still worried about what happened today, I take it?"

Tomoyo hugged herself loosely, staring into the gray, cement ground that passed her by with each measured step. She held her tongue for a moment before continuing, "Well... I suppose I had never given any serious thought to how fragile childhood friendships could be, at least until now," she said quietly. More to herself than to him, he supposed, but he still waited and listened. Eventually she came out with another question, "Tell me, do you believe in fortune-telling, or that dreams can have meaning?"

Reios found himself surprised at the seemingly random change in topic, but it was one he was eager to pursue, "To be honest, I have actually studied about dreams and fortune-telling. Topics about the future and inner belief, the meanings of images and the subconscious, and of one's way with handling them. Among other things."

He paused a moment to consider his words, but noticed that Tomoyo had taken on slightly confused expression to her face. Or was it an intrigued expression?

"It's a slightly long story. Actually, it ties into that little bit about my surname. Something to save for tomorrow night," his eyes gleamed with the excitement of a story to tell, and she nodded in agreement to wait. There would be much to talk about, at this rate.

They turned the corner of the block and continued along the sidewalk's length, the contents of which were still fenced off and blockaded from view by an endless line of shrubbery and iron. Reios then suddenly realized that he had derailed the topic, and brought it back on track "Anyway, was there a dream that you had once had?"

Tomoyo nodded, recalling the daydream that she had had a few years ago in the local shopping district, something that she later had learned had been invoked by the then-rogue Dream card. She considered about how much to actually tell him, and picked at her words carefully, "I once had this... extremely vivid dream of how I was able to model Sakura in any costume I could think up, and for as long as I wanted. Oh, that is, some of my hobbies include dressmaking and filmmaking, in both of which I have Sakura model for me. At first I thought that this dream was a... an admittance, I guess, to how much I liked what I did, but over time... it started to feel like something else..." She trailed off after that, unsure of what else to say at that moment.

"A dream can mean several things, especially when it concerns another person or one's self," Reios interjected, speaking slowly to keep track of his own words, "and these meanings can be more intense if the dream is made to seem more real. If you think that you had a clear understanding of what that dream actually meant, especially if it was vivid and well remembered, then that is what will happen. Not only in the proverbial senses that the images may convey, but also in any situational scenarios as well."

Tomoyo furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, "Situational?"

Reios crossed his arms, looking up to the early evening sky thoughtfully, "It means – by my interpretation of your dream, at least – that if you continue to want to be with Sakura, then you will be. I'm getting the feeling that the two of you are especially close to each other in the friendship department. So, by my account, she would make her best effort to equally return your desire to remain as a friend.

"My guess is that you interpreted this through your dream because that's how you were living your life back then. You kept her by your side by asking her to model for you while wearing these dresses that you made, and she returned those intentions by honoring your attempts to keep her there, likely because she also wanted to be there. Therefore, if you stick to your interpretation of the dream by each situation that it encompasses, then I suppose you could say that each new article of clothing you make keeps you together as friends that much longer. Of course, that's just taking the literal approach to interpretation."

Reios held his breath for a moment before adding with a side glance, "...did that even make any sense?"

But Tomoyo had failed to heed his final statement, for her mind had begun to race with all the possible implications of his meaning. She had never really thought of it like that before. She had originally assumed that her dream had just been an extension of her desire to see nothing but her extremely cute Sakura in equally cute costumes, nothing more and nothing less. But then, had it really all just been a way to remain close to her? Some kind of unknown, subconscious thought that had driven her, or perhaps just a simple excuse on her own part so as not to have to leave Sakura's side? After all, Kero had said that the Dream card didn't show a person just normal dreams, but that such dreams held images and information concerning the future. The card's dreams actually held important meanings that needed to be interpreted. For Reios to tell it all to her like that, as though it were fact, was completely changing her view of this world of hers.

It did little to change her base desires or resolve, however.

"Well, if that's the case, I'll just have to put some extra effort into the one I'm making right now!" Tomoyo exclaimed, suddenly seeming to hit cloud nine, "Oh! Maybe I can have it done by tomorrow night, even!" Reios found himself wondering at just how close he had been to imagining her dream, based on her description.

Just as suddenly as Tomoyo's streak of euphoria hit, it was gone again as she suddenly turned in towards the fence beside them. Except that it wasn't a fence anymore, but was rather a set of large, black gates placed between two, white-brick pillars. He raised an eyebrow as he noticed the engraved nameplate over what looked like an intercom, and how it read as the kanji symbols for what was probably Tomoyo's family name - Daidouji. Then he noticed what was beyond the gate, and went completely slack-jawed.

What little that was visible through the black, wrought iron gates was nothing short of the Garden of Eden. A large, elegant fountain was centered along the main walkway, spurting arcs of water in several directions, while thick growths of rosebush, or at least some kind of bush, grew upon multiple lengths of latices and arbors which themselves were attached to small fences of more hedges. And beyond the fountain and bushes sat one of the largest houses he had ever thought to see. Even by his North American standards, this house was close to extravagantly oversized.

"Hell, forget the gate keeper, you'd need a full security detail to guard the damn place," he muttered to himself.

"What was that?"

He caught his error after being prompted, and stood back in a slight embarrassment, realizing he had just muttered in English. Not only that, but he had used a few choice words in a civilized conversation that would have earned him a half-hour lecture back home. In a way, he was thankful he had let his control of languages slip.

"Err, no, nothing. Sorry, disregard that. I was just rather, well... surprised, I guess, at the size of this place," he stuttered out, lifting a hand in the general direction of the mansion beyond the gates, "What's with the size of the place?"

"That... we can save for tomorrow night, as well," she replied, evading his question with a glint of humor in her eye. He found himself being entrapped within his own desire for stories, and let the issue drop, bobbing his head in defeat and grinning at Tomoyo's quick wit.

"Very well. Tomorrow, then," he said, bowing slightly to her as she turned back from pressing the buzzer on the intercom. The gate snapped open slightly in response to her page, the grate of metal on metal sounding out quietly into the evening air. She nodded her head in return, and bid him a good night as he turned to walk back down the block towards the bus station they had left behind.

She grabbed onto the gate to let herself in, but stopped herself as a soft, fluttering melody began to filter in from Reios's general direction. She stepped back to locate the source of the sound, and noticed that Reios had taken to playing some sort of silver-colored instrument as he was walking away. Judging by its size, and the way he was handling it, it looked to be a flute. She guessed that he had pulled it from that black, pole-shaped bag on his back, but he had turned the corner and was gone before she could verify it. He left behind only the continuing stream of notes as he continued to play his song in the distance. At least it proved that he really was a musician.

Another story to be told, she thought to herself. Finally stepping through the small opening the gate had provided, it soon pulled itself shut behind her, locking into place with an audible click.

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End, Chapter 1