Chapter 28-Nakuru
It did not make sense. Yet it did, in some ways. How could Syaoran fall sick, and then suddenly revive without anything....? Yet it all had to do with, well, I guess the strength of mind. Something about that night had given Syaoran a will to live again, some kind of mysterious strength.
Just in time for ( drumroll(-_-')) school.
The two months of summer do not last forever, as some might hope or think. September is like March, unless I got it all wrong about the lion and the lamb. The poor month started with Syaoran going to school with Xuyan, ( they were practicing a cello duet the passing week) and encountering some people who suddenly decided to act like teenagers ( hint hint ' oh, he's so cute, isn't he?') to which I guess Jingxi was glad his true name was not known to all. Since Yukito had given me an account of all that happened ( with someone like Syaoran, once he opens up he tells you everything) I am able to tell, while adding, heheh, my own points of view.
The school hours were nothing special, except that the wonderful Yamazaki had realized that Syaoran was paler than normal ( of course, snow would have something to compete with) and wondered if Syaoran had decided to bleach his skin. ( Oh gee, Syaoran wouldn't need that.) To which Syaoran, perfectly resentful, replied ' Iie!'. Now since Syaoran had wanted to ' join in', and ' act normal' ( as normal as he could be, anyway), he had decided to join the soccer team. ( Smart).
To which Eriol-sama had quickly informed everyone that Syaoran is a bit weak ( oh sure, a bit) and that they shouldn't let Syaoran join. But the problem is, with his wonderful martial arts ( gosh, I'm starting to speak/write like Touya) had enhanced Syaoran's catching skills, and believe it or not there is a reason why Syaoran did not wear glasses ( with all due respect to Eriol-sama and Yukito-san) and he made a pretty good goalie. So Eriol's words were thrown out of the hat and the team accepted him-or rather, the coach did, and then the team.
It was perfectly idiotic, because there was a soccer tournament for that team somewhere around March ( whoa, September's twin), and unfortunately Syaoran was in it. Jingxi performed very well during the practices, ( except he always had to rest for some time everytime he scored a goal, or otherwise every fifteen minutes) and he definetely won't be in the World Cup Finals ( They have them for ninety minutes, and by that time Syaoran would pass out). Of course, Eriol's friends are doing the best they could to find a cure ( sure they are) but in the meantime Syaoran had to rest during each interval, and he drank a lot of water. Eriol was not happy with his cute little descendant, but what can one do? That's Syaoran's decision, and it's probably...the best one.
So we had Syaoran joining the soccer team, with Sakura's cheerleaders, um,
cheering for them. ( Hey, I'm speak English the best. I don't always say ' ano') But
other than the team, we have the " Admissions Test for Junior High School", to
which Fujitaka and Yukito had to spend some money to get Sakura and Syaoran
into prep classes. Eriol didn't go-he didn't need to. Tomoyo went though. So they
were doing algebra. I was going to college. Touya's gone already, off to the college
which I was going, and plus, our dorms were right next to each other. I have
absolutely no idea how Yukito manages to go to college while taking care of
Syaoran, because he only comes home during weekends or on holidays. Quite
frankly, Syaoran spends most of his time at Sakura's or at Eriol's, or with Xuyan,
although we still don't trust that boy. So basically it became as, well, normal as it
had been before the trip to Hong Kong.
I wasn't exactly planning on staying in Japan; I had gotten to Oxford, believe it or not. So basically I had returned to England to go to my school, being too old for such things so it's a breeze for me. Spinel stayed with Eriol, Kaho and I switched places, so now she's taking care of everything in Eriol's house in Japan. I knew that I gave Touya quite a few headaches, but I don't know who he prefers to stay away from-Kaho or me. Kaho, as you all know, is a very quiet, polite and mature woman. I'm just plainly hyper. So quite frankly I can understand why Touya would get a little nervous around me, and I'm not interested in him anymore, with his magic gone and all. ( Kero was wrong about this one-you always have something to replace whatever you lost, in this case, magic.) But that doesn't mean I don't get excited. With Kaho, on the other hand, she dumped Touya, they had quite a history which I don't want to explain right now.
So Touya and Kaho took turns babying Syaoran-that is, when Touya comes home, and he's always with Yukito. So the correct way to say is; Fujitaka and Kaho took turns babying Syaoran. Kinomoto-san ( and I say -san simply because you's expect me to write Japanese for a Japanese name) was by no means cold hearted, and when he looked upon Touya's orphaned ' gaki', to which we made him think his family was killed in a car accident ( which they were), he quickly took Syaoran in as another son. I guess the only problem was that we had to convince him to give Syaoran a daily draught. Because Fujitaka knows something about AIDS, so we can't really trick him into that.
So we fooled him to thinking that Syaoran had gotten an early arthritis. ( Latin is not my favorite subject despite what you think so I don't know what kind it is-I think it's fairly recent, but I'm no MD.) If Fujitaka really knew what kind of arthritis it was, he would have realized that the best way to slow the immune system from attacking itself is by eating raisins soaked in gin(?). But Fujitaka is an archeaologist, so no matter anymore.
Alright, from the beginning of the story until now, we've been focusing almost entirely on Syaoran and his health, so now, me, being the false form of Ruby Moon ( or actually, Ruby Moon), would like to fill to whom it may concern with details on what the heck is going on with the others.
So first, being a guardian, I'll fill on the guardians. For history lesson's sake, Spinel and I are actually the two older guardians; Yue and Kerberus came after. We're not the perfect ones; creating immortals is not easy, especially if you're a mortal. Spinel and I are Clow's first creations-four is not a small number, after all, how many guardians do you need anyway? Clow is, by no means, the most powerful sorceror, and I say this because to believe he is would be a lie. Clow is probably one of the stronger ones, but he wasn't the most powerful. It takes a lot of skill to weild a lot of power, and Clow is very mortal. So he created me and Spinel, and unfortunately I guess he messed up a little on the personality part, because our personalities are part of Clow's. ( Please, Clow does get hyper, although not usually.) He divided it badly, it takes a lot of skill and guts, and I ended up being super hyper, while Spinel was completely calm and contained. We weren't supposed to eat, so when we did, we couldn't stop anymore. ( Partly the reason why Syaoran calls us pigheads.) On the other hand, Spinel and I balanced each other out. I was all for fun. He was all for business. So as they say opposites attract, we were forced to stick together not by Clow but by fate. I let him loosen up, and Spinel keeps me cooled.
Which is sort of the reason why when we were separated my social life in Oxford got a little bit haywire. I am smart for an eighteen year old ( heck, what can you expect from someone who has seen the turn of so many milleniums?) but there are other smart eighteen year old freshman who wants to fit in, by studying. Spinel would have liked that place if he has a human form. At Oxford, there was intense competition. Everyone wants to get As, and in fact, everyone does. But you have so many smart people, it's hard to crawl your way to the top. And I ended up somewhere in the middle, a little towards the bottom simply because I got a ninety five on one of the tests. ( It was an accident; I had a migraine, but do you seriously think the professors would care?) So with all that competition, none of the students even think about going to a disco, or a dance, or going out on dates. They're all in their dorms doing homework and studying. So with me along, all hyper, energetic, very enthusiastic, the only good thing about me, it would be pretty hard to accept me in that group. So I wasn't very happy.
Spinel and Kero have some kind of problem with each other whenever it comes to meals. I guess neither of them will admit the other eats more, because they can go on eating forever and ever if there is food available. I am capable of getting a stomachache. They aren't. Without me there, I guess Eriol got quite some headaches. So did Kaho. Because cats usually do what they want to do, when they want to do it, and no one else has any say. Spinel became a hairball that's out of control. But at the same time, between meals, Spinel was quiet and silent. He and Kero took turns guarding Jingxi without the poor child knowing it, and also keeping an eye on Xuyan, who ( I later found out) played two instruments: the cello and the violin. So Spinel had enough of the violin; he once wanted to smash that thing into some little corpse. If the thing had costed over ten thousand dollars ( which it didn't, because it was a three quarter sized violin anyway), Xuyan would have been able to do something like sue Eriol. But that thing was under ten thousand dollars. So it's just ' tough luck' for poor Li Xuyan. Of course, Syaoran was not very happy either.
Yukito and Touya happened to be doing much better in their college than I was. Yukito wanted to be a doctor. Touya wanted to be a lawyer. We once joked that those two can work together so whenever Touya needs to refer a doctor, Yukito will be the first on the list, and then whenever Yukito gets sued for careless accidents Touya could go into court. They went to different schools in the same university, although they share a dorm. You'd think they were brothers or twins. Touya really misses his imotou's stomps. Yukito was always looking forward for vacation. And not for the reason most people would think. And trust one's luck, those two had a dorm right beside another which had two musicians. One was a classical musician, who plays the piano and also sings opera. The other was a jazz trumpetist.You can imagine how they get along. The university has a music school, or actually, performing arts school, so jazz was included. But the musicians both had irritable tempers, not because it's their character, but because the singer thinks jazz is too simple and the trumpetist thinks classics are too boring. The singer knows how to sight read and sight sing, so she was able to practice in her dorm. The trumpetist has his own trumpet and has perfect pitch, plus a tuning fork to make it precise, so the singer sings and the trumpetist trumpets. Yukito and Touya don't mind music, but jazz and classics don't go together, especially not at the same time. Of course, it was always interrupted with arguing, shoutings, ' you sing too loud!' or ' you blast your trumpet like an elephant!'. I think those two don't respect each other at all.
Speaking of musicians, during all of September and most of October, Eriol's piano suddenly broke down. It was a grand, plus a Steinway, directly imported from Germany ( it was much better than the Steinways at New York, in my opinion, and I think Vladmir Horowitz agrees with me), but Eriol was not exactly happy with the instrument's endurance. He bought it brand new, so he had to tune it every two to three weeks, a tiresome and expensive task. When it finally got better, by the time he was supposedly seven, I believe, it lasted until now, and suddenly it broke down. Several of the hammers got loose and wouldn't hit the strings. The brass nails rusted so the hammers needed to be replaced. The pedals creaked noisily. Eriol was having a terrible time. It's not nice to play Moonlight by Beethoven when you hear creaks in the midst of all the peace and quiet, plus stumbles and sloppiness because there were missing notes, and clicks to replace them because the hammer hits somewhere else. Eriol was as happy as I was.
And then came Xuyan, who practices his violin everyday as well as cello. A busy life for an eleven year old. He was doing alright in school, Jingxi had helped him a little with his Japanese. He knows a fairly decent amount of words as well as grammar, but his vocabulary still needs filling. He and Syaoran found out something else to compete with, other than martial arts. Luckily, he and Syaoran were on the same team. Otherwise Syaoran's toast. Soccer involves a lot of kicking. The only problem Xuyan had, was kicking a little too high. Syaoran had a little more control over his legs, as did Eriol. Xuyan had decided to become the attacker, Eriol the defender, and Syaoran, at what was the best for his health, the goalie. Of course, they switch places. But goalie was the best for Syaoran. Yamazaki had to compete with Eriol. All of the sudden, there was a whole lot of competition. It has to do with going soon to middle school, I guess.
Tomoyo was actually quite busy. Now she had quite a few things to film. Eriol, mostly, though. Especially when he is an attacker on the field. Eriol also went to concerts, played in them actually. Count on Tomoyo-chan to record everything. I once wrote to Eriol telling him he should record Tomoyo for a change, but not a chance. Tomoyo's the camera specialist. Eriol's just the scene. And then we get to some interesting tapes Tomoyo had about cheerleading practice, which in this case is mostly about Sakura doing her perfect somersaults, but there were others-Noako with her glasses that kept on falling off everytime she jumped. ( She should learn to wear contacts) Chiharu with her pigtails dancing as she moved her head. It was mighty interesting.
And last but not least, the kawaii Sakura-chan! Forget about magic, just learn to feed Kero and keep him quiet. She was a little sad that Touya had gone off. " It's very quiet", was what she said. But life is normal, life is good, there are no cards in danger, no people in danger, no judgements, no trials, no tests from Clow Reed, no mysterious auras, no weird rains or oversized bears. Just plain, simple, jolly old ordinary life. Nothing strange, and nothing special.
All of the children were studying hard for the upcoming middle school admissions test. They all want to go to the best school, after all. So it was quite a busy month, or busy group of months, however you want to call it. We could have forgotten all about that summer. Could have.
There are times when one wants to escape. Not run away, exactly, because you plan
to come back. But then you forget to, you were feeling too good, too happy. That
was a mistake we all made. Li Jingxi played a bigger role in our lives than we had
thought. And then when he was gone, we weren't ready for it.
