This is set in the same universe as Meia's "Angels in the Rain", which you should all read. In case you haven't, bascially, it's set a long long time after all the characters except the guardians are dead. It was spawned from the same set of conversations that created "How to Catch the Moon."
Oh, and if Nakuru wants to be a girl, let her be a girl. So Nakuru is a she here. And, yes, Touya is dead, but he lived a long and happy life with his beloved and this is set a long time after that anyway.
Of the Moon, Sun and Stars
By Flamebyrd
I watch him as he lays a single red rose on the grave. No peach-blossom puns from Yue, just a wordless expression of love and mourning.
It's not raining any more.
I'm in my human form and so is he, but he's not the smilingly oblivious Tsukishiro Yukito I remember. He's... more serious. Just like Yue is not quite as cold as he used to be.
He frowns when I question him on this. I can tell he's making some kind of internal comments about my lack of tact, but I really couldn't care less.
He's silent for a very long time.
"It helps to talk about it," I say, in a knowing tone.
He glares at me and I shut up. "It was a defense mechanism, at first, having the two separate personalities. That way I could hold on to my own love and yet still allow part of me to follow the path Clow set me upon."
I giggle. "But both of you fell for Touya-kun, didn't you, ne?"
"It was just Yukito at first."
Of course it was, I think. "And after that?" I ask, swinging around him to look him in the face.
"I think, by the end of it, we were only staying separate out of stubborness."
"And when he died?"
He closed his eyes. "It was easier, then."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't have any one there to call me Yuki anymore."
I was silent for a moment. "You really miss him, don't you?"
He nods.
I decide making jokes here would be really inappropriate, so I simply take his hand and squeeze it lightly. He gives me a slightly grateful look and we stand there in silence for a few moments, watching the wind ruffle the flowers on his grave.
"Yue..." I say, giving him a small smile and cocking my head. "I'll call you Yuki. If you like."
He doesn't reply.
Akizuki is staring at me again.
I wish she wouldn't. (She insisted, early in our re-acquaintance, that I treat her "like a lady". The closest I've managed so far is treating her like a girl.)
Moon Guardians should not fall for other Moon Guardians. It interferes with the order of the universe. The moon is in love with the sun, not with another moon.
She tells me I'm not the Moon any more, because Yukito was the sun and I was the Moon and since Yukito is now part of me I can't just be the moon so I have to be somewhere in between, like a star and anyway that makes more sense because Sakura's power is of the stars.
I told her Touya was the sun. She got this really dreamy look after that and said Touya wasn't the sun, either, he was the ocean because he looked so cold and forbidding on the outside, but was really deep and beautiful below the surface.
I don't quite follow her logic. He was the light of my life, of course he was the sun. That's okay, though. All I have to do is listen to her and she'll stop babbling eventually.
She avoided me for a week after I told her to stop calling me Yuki. It felt wrong, coming from her. And I knew Touya wouldn't approve of her stealing his pet name. I wasn't about to replace him with Akizuki.
"But it wouldn't be replacing him. I'm completely different!" she insisted.
She was right, of course. Touya would never try to have a serious conversation while swinging round and round a pole.
Akizuki has an annoying habit of dropping down from trees with ice cream, cookies, cake or some other form of sugary substance and offering it to me. I tell her I'm not Kerberos or Spinel Sun and she can go fight off her sweets addiction on her own. Then I have to put up with her pouting for the next hour, until I inevitably take pity on her and offer to share a cup of green tea.
She doesn't like green tea, unless it's in ice cream. Still, I figure it's the thought that counts.
I wonder how much she is pushing herself to be so happy all the time. She must miss him more than she lets on.
Maybe she only shows her sorrow in private.
--
And that's all for now.
