Terror was the word she would use to describe Syaoran's reaction as he asked "….W-what happened?"

His expression alone was enough to make her giggle, but it was his tone that had her throw her arms around his neck with a rush of the greatest happiness she was sure she would ever feel.

"I think we just kissed" she offered with amusement

"O-oh"

She looked at him shyly "…it was bad?"

"N-no!"

"Your face thinks it was" she commented playfully "Not my face though--look!" She smiled brightly "It's happy!"

"I…I'm…my…I'm…"

"Happy?" she asked too eagerly

"….Happy" he finished with a bashful grin

For awhile they could only smile softly in their breathlessness, while those blushes that had become part of their relationship reappeared brighter than ever. Everything about the situation made her happy and light and she couldn't stop herself from pulling him closer with more nervous giggles. She knew she was selfish and wanted another kiss but didn't know how to persuade that uneasy smile to repeat the action when he was still suffering from the shock of the first. His shaking arms did wrap around her though, loosely at first but when she encouraged him with a shy smile he pulled her body firmly against his chest. She felt excited all over again and quickly looked up to share a happy smile with him but stopped short. There was one emotion mixed into his calm brown eyes and it was because it frightened her, she turned to hide her smile into his shoulder instead.

Everything about Syaoran scared her but for as terrified as the unexplainable emotion felt to her she loved feeling it. Syaoran had always excited her with his passions which was why she felt the only way she could love him properly was to fall into him blindly but with all her heart. It was a dangerous and careless move but Sakura could only smile coyly in the face of it as she sat beside Fay on the back porch the following day. She could love him, she mused. She was sure she would be able to love Syaoran greater than anyone else.

Syaoran and Kurogane were training in the backyard. The white bench swing they sat in presented them with what Fay called "the perfect view." Shirtless and muscular in their own right the two she referred to as the "warriors" of their family faced off before her eyes. To anyone passing by they looked disgusted and angry towards each other, with their teeth bared and their movements primal, but the vile scene of metal clashing and bodies sweating made Sakura smile.

The same smile she used as she leaned up into his red cheek later that night making them both surrender to the delicious warmth of desire. When she rubbed her cheek against his he rubbed harder with shameful intention as his hands pressed along her curves in a way that made her stiffen. Once grasping the full idea of where his hands were heading he became ashamed and quickly removed himself from her with every intention of leaving. Sakura pressed the hands right back to their place though.

It was his turn to freeze as she leaned forward to whisper "…do that again?"

Sakura inhaled the early morning air just as anxiously as she had hours earlier. As if hearing the sound Syaoran glanced at her while he spoke with Fay and Kurogane and she glanced back shyly while Mokona danced merrily in the pile of laundry around them. Her white companion was trying it's hardest to help her with the laundry but failing in every way except looking cute. Particularly with a tattered brown cloak that was just too much for the poor creature to handle.

"Too heavy!" the creature sung with a smile "Do you want to try?"

Sakura gladly took it from Moko-chan with a warm smile and gave the abused fabric a tender kiss.

Kiss after kiss came between her and Syaoran with such forceful pleasure that soon all she could do was whimper and cling to his cloak as Syaoran took control of her with actions so feverishly passionate they made her body quiver uncontrollably.

The sounds she made for him controlled him, made him kiss her harder and faster, deeper and longer until his teeth at last bit through her flesh one night. She screamed, and squirmed against him as he quickly pulled back in horror. Disgust shadowed his face and he took his hands from her, trying to run away again.

Her hands ran up his scared sides though, along the fabric against his chest. Quickly but passionately she drew them all the way up to his face before holding his red cheeks in her hands. She kissed the corner of his mouth, the tip of his nose, the center of his forehead before looking back to him with a mischievous smile.

"But--" He flushed miserably even as she fingertips brushed his lips "…I bit you"

She giggled, burying her face into his sweaty chest "And I liked it!"

His eyes widened "W-what?"

"I liked it" she mumbled quickly "It felt good"

He grew more embarrassed with hair stuck out at different angles

"It all feels good" She touched his lips again and smiled timidly "…doesn't it?"

Syaoran lowered his flushed cheeks with his own smile

How could one boy be so strong and seemingly untouchable one moment, and completely gentle and vulnerable the next? She didn't know but she was sure it was why the undeniable affection she felt for Syaoran had never been stronger. Even as he smiled nervously the next morning while Kurogane and Fay's antics became the center of a public spectacle in town Sakura could still taste his dominance.

She didn't realize she had softly licked her lips in the thoughts until he touched her shoulder and asked with a tinge of worry if she was hungry.

"None of us eat as much as we should" Fay pointed out with a grin

"We should have special times!" Mokona bounced "Yuuko says--!"

"That witch say a lot of crap" Kurogane snorted "If you're hungry then eat, it's that simple. Why the fuck would you need to eat just because someone else wants to? You'll never be satisfied"

"If you ate every time you wanted to Fay would be very tired!" Mokona reprimanded

Kurogane glared hotly

"He can't cook for you all the time!!" It added quickly

"I always have energy for Kuro-daddy!" Fay insisted brightly "If you're hungry now I'll--"

"I'm not!" He pushed the clinging mage away with red cheeks "The princess is!"

Syaoran smiled calmly to the display before asking "Are you?"

The whole group had looked to her but Sakura only smiled to him and said readily "I am"

It was the shock of her lips smashing against his open mouth that made him loose balance. The town evaporated into their empty living room as they tumbled down into the couch with her on top. The kiss was desperate, she knew, but it was that emotion that made her close her eyes and move against his parted lips more fervently. She was crying even as she did it but those apprehensive tears soon evaporated into steamy nothingness once Syaoran began to move under her with the same irrepressible need. They were both breathing hard, the air around them was flooded with cold clouds of white but as soon as she closed her eyes the only thing that mattered was that she could still taste Syaoran even when their lips parted. She never wanted to leave and told him and even playfully bit him when he tried to take her to her room to make him gasp and flush.

So they just watched each other all night instead, him keeping a weary smile on her now dangerous mouth as they laid half-naked and freezing from sweat in the darkest corner of the house.

"Did I ever tell you about the girl who told me that it was obvious I was in love with you?"

Syaoran looked over his shoulder to where Kurogane and Fay were walking behind them before his cheeks reddened with a nervous smile "O-obvious?"

"To everyone but you" she added playfully

He sweat dropped "Oh"

"But she also said that it was just bound to happen because you're my hero. There's nothing special in falling in love with some one who protects you, it just happens she told me"

He still smiled but it wasn't a happy smile. Rather an expression that was so fragile that it might break at the slightest touch. It was because it worried her that Sakura reached for his hand, he reached back, and together their fingers met before he pulled them to his shaking lips. The heavy emotion in those normally calm amber eyes made her throat tight but she wouldn't dare look away even as Kurogane and Fay slowly approached them from behind.

"I told her that it was insulting and that the love I felt was only for Syaoran, not the things he did for me, but who he was to me and how he made me feel"

He diverted his eyes with that strange smile "How can you love me if you don't know me, Sakura?"

"How can you love me if you don't know me, Syaoran?"

"I do know you" he said firmly

"You don't" she replied with a sad smile

Syaoran hardened features were touched with sadness "I know you more than you'll ever know"

She pouted and drew herself up on the tips of her toes to state "If you know me best then you should already know why I love you, Syaoran!"

"Love?" Fay appeared between them and their hands parted with flushes of crooked innocence.

Even as Syaoran stuttered and smiled in that twisted way of denial Sakura couldn't defy her love for him. Her heart wasn't happy about it, she knew, but the thought only made her affection for him greater. And when he finally did take up her hand in front of Kurogane and Fay a moment later with confident embarrassment in the face of their reactions, it only increased her devotion to him.

Faithfulness that had her heart racing when his hands slid across her exposed skin, her mind blurry and disorientated when they moved into the small of her bare back. She followed him though and he followed her and soon they always smiled without indecision or resistance. It was then Sakura was sure she had done it. She was confident that she was the one who loved Syaoran best and the only one who could do it properly. She pulled him down and he let himself fall.

Expectant longing had her knees buckle now as she tripped over a chunk of rocky debris and cried out in a pain that echoed the past. Acid rain and useless flesh of Tokyo covered her hasty mistake and so Kurogane and Fay hadn't noticed and kept running towards Syaoran, but the other boy had stopped. With the eyes of a frightened animal he came to her side and offered a hand.

The very same hand she rejected in that moment became a vice behind her neck but it was different and more precious, one she could never refuse even as his hot emotionless breath mingled with hers. So many different emotions passed in and out of his good eye as her face was forced closer but in the end both eyes turned into a shade of empty fixation that made her last smile the most painful.

The memories of pain never to be forgotten and memories of joy only now remembered were the driving force that reclaimed what was lost as two sets of bloody lips meet with the same incomparable innocence and sinful yearning that lead to their demise.

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Morbid fate told in the form of pure symbolism creates the backbone of the most delicious kind, doesn't it?
And hunger. Lol. Seriously, CLAMP starves them.

100 reviews! Thanks so much to all the people who take the time, especially when it's to nudge me about improvement. Every comment always makes me smile so thanks again!!!

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Fandom: TRC
Pairing: Syaoran x Sakura
Theme: Path of Sin 003
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own TRC

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