A/N: I'm really sorry for the late posting. My best friend came over, I only get to see her once or twice a month because we go to different schools and are too busy for anything else, and I needed to help her with a personal problem. Well, I guess friendship comes first. And, yes darkangel, I have read your review (for ch.9) and I thank you for the warm sentiment, I completely agree with you.

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Chapter 11: Samba

God dammit! I love you Hiiragizawa Eriol!

Her voice still rang in my head, words repeating until I memorized every nuance of her voice and the cadence of every syllable. Their impact on me was almost palpable, threatening me, overwhelming me. I didn't want to hear them; I wanted for her voice and eyes to disappear from my memory. No such luck; I could still remember every curve in her cheeks, the dip of her lip and the glow in her eyes. I could still feel her skin pressed against mine; I could still taste her sweetness on my tongue. She haunted me, my mind, my body.

I remember seeing her retreating form in the bitterness of the night, pale and radiant like a sliver of moonlight descended upon the earth, dancing just out of my reach. I could hear the echo of her shoes clicking against the pavement and the snow and the sound of those words reverberating off the walls and onto me. I just stood there, watching her run away from me, out of my life and I was too stupid and too slow to seize the chance that was granted me.

"Hiiragizawa?"

I voice breached my concentration and I instinctively looked up into the face of one of my classmates. I was sitting in my English Lit. class, pretending to be analysing A Passage to India, by E. M. Forster. Unwittingly, my thoughts had turned to Tomoyo... again, and I cursed myself for my weakness. This has been happening all too often as of late. It has been nearly two weeks since that night at the club, and I still couldn't get rid of my memories of her and that time. This... being too far from her, not seeing her smile or hearing her voice, was driving me insane. Without even realizing it, she had become the one drug that I needed to survive, the one thing I needed to live and breathe.

"Yes, Touya?" I replied in a drone voice, forcing myself to remember the name of that particular classmate. It was fair-skinned youth with dark hair reaching to almost his shoulders and falling into his Cerulean eyes (1). I remember doing a project with him once upon a time.

"Isn't this you?" Touya asked, pointing to a tabloid magazine in his hand. I glanced at the said newspaper and blanched. On the cover of the magazine, surrounded by flashy signs and phrases, was a picture of Tomoyo and myself. It was of us at the gala, freshly out of the limo and into the sea of reporters. I smiled almost wistfully at the bedazzled expression on my face, and then I saw Tomoyo and my heart sunk to the soles of my shoes.

"Ano... no," I answered almost hastily, for some reason afraid to be caught at an awkward moment, "must be someone who just looks incredibly like me."

Touya looked doubtful for a moment, deliberating the next course of action. I almost thought he would press me with more questions, but I was surprised with an accepting nod and a comforting almost-smile. "You're right, you must have a twin walking somewhere in this city." I couldn't help but feel relieved.

I tuned out the monotonous voice of the teacher and looked out to the street outside the window. The trees were heavy with snow, gnarled branches scratching at the glass. The torrent clouds were furrowed together, pregnant with rain. It's almost as if the weather mimicked my mood; it has been doing that since this whole thing stated, I noted half-heartedly.

I didn't know what to think anymore, and it suddenly dawned on me that I have forgotten to consider the consequences of this whole affair since the beginning, only when things seemed most complicated did I bother thinking about the impact they might have. I didn't think what would happen when I went to the interview with Tomoyo that first time in Chez Pierre's. I didn't think to stop myself from being pulled by her, from gravitating toward her sheer brilliance. And I certainly didn't think about the words spewing from my mouth, if I did, maybe Tomoyo would be by my side right now, not somewhere out there, too far from my reach. I shook my head, scrambling my thoughts. I didn't want to contemplate on it, I wanted to forget Tomoyo and everything that had to do with her. I didn't want to be walking in the streets and be reminded of how she enjoyed taking walks in the mornings, or how the sun would gleam off her hair and eyes. No, that was the last thing I wanted or needed.

Before I knew it, it was the end of school, and I had to get home to feed Spinel Sun and work on my term paper. As I walked down the campus road, however, my feet suddenly gained a life of their own and led me wherever they wished to go. I passed a small park not too far from the dance studio where I had stolen a peek at a dancing Tomoyo. It brought back memories of her; I didn't even realize that I had so much to remember her by. I sat at a lonely bench, glancing at the stillness of a winter day.

I heard muted laughter nearby and looked up in expectance, unintentionally seeing out Tomoyo amongst the trees. To my surprise, I saw Syaoran strolling with a petite blonde at his side. I recognized the girl as Sakura, the one person Syaoran had the misfortune of being smitten by. I had seen him moan and cry about that girl for a long time. What had changed? He looked happy, if anything, and that was a strange sight to behold. I had never seen my friend so much as smile, less of all outright laugh, and seeing him like this struck a chord within me. I was jealous of his happiness, envious that he was able to smile, to talk and just be with the one person he couldn't live without.

I observed them for a long moment, letting my hair and spectacles conceal my gaze, not that they would notice, they had eyes only for each other. Again, like a great flood, Tomoyo's words came rushing to me. She had said that love was everywhere, in the very air that I breathed. She said that love was the greatest force on Earth, all-powerful and mighty. Looking back on it now and seeing the smile on Syaoran and Sakura's faces, I almost wanted to believe it.

I felt tired, weary of everything. The air just seems to be escaping my throat with a greater difficulty, as if punishing me because of something I had unwittingly done. It seemed, oddly enough, as if somebody was writing out my life, playing with the strings of my emotions and purposely skewing my predicament for their own enjoyment. I didn't feel real, like I was a mere doll to play with. Or a doll whose only reason in life was to observe how his life got bamboozled over.

"Eriol? What are you doing here?"

A voice behind me startled me, dispelling the momentary trance. I turned slightly in the bench and was surprised to find Syaoran, standing behind me, without his Sakura. "Eh? Oh... I just came here to think. It's easier to do that in the fresh air, you know?" I snorted mentally. That was lame, I sounded like a dork even to myself.

Syaoran nodded in understanding. He motioned for me to walk with him and I obliged. "I haven't seen you lately. What hole had you burrowed yourself in?" He asked teasingly, which was another surprise for me. Syaoran? Make a joke?! That's as possible as me just croaking and falling over, dead on the spot!

"Oh, I've been... around. I had a lot of things to think about. Hey, wasn't that Sakura with you just now? When did you finally come down from your mountain and confess to her?" I was all too eager to change the subject.

Syaoran flushed profoundly, shuffling his feet in the still fresh snow. "... I thought about it for a long time," he said after a moment, staring at nothing in particular, "I thought about all the times I saw her and how she made me feel. I can't really explain what goes through me when she's close; I guess the only way to describe it is: love."

Love? There is that word again. In the past twelve days (since the incident at the club) I had grown to both hate and swoon over that wretched word.

"One time," Syaoran continued, completely missing what must have been a cringe on my face, I didn't mind though, it was rare to have him reveal too much personal information about himself, "Sakura went to visit her brother, Touya, back home in Tomoeda. She was gone for three weeks but I felt like it was forever. God, I can't tell you what was going through me at the time. I was going nearly insane. I tried to tell myself that she was nothing special, that she was just another girl among millions. I tried to forget her, to find someone else to be attracted to. That didn't do much, I just ended up spending thrice the amount of time thinking about her. It's like she had dug a hole in my heart and hid there to forever pester me."

"What did you do about it?" I asked, all too curious to hear the answer.

"Remember those parties I dragged you to?" he asked, grinning almost sly at me. "I went to those only because I thought that Sakura would attend. I was hoping to maybe see her in a different light and stop liking her. Oh, no. She only got more beautiful," He looked at the snow with an almost melancholy air. "I just couldn't stand it anymore. I hated seeing her with anybody else, I hated the thought of it. And the indecision was tearing me apart, you know? Like I was drowning and wasn't able to move to save myself. I wanted to seize the opportunity while it was still available to me. So... I just caught her after class one day and told her..."

"What did she do?"

A cross between a smirk and a leer stretched on his face. "She tackle-kissed me. Ends up she had been infatuated with me from nearly the first moment we met but was too afraid to tell me. Oh, the irony! Almost makes me want to hit my head against something really hard for my stupidity."

I smiled, too, though just a bit half-heartedly. Oddly enough, Syaoran's situation reminded me of my own. I, however, was still stuck in the stages of admitting the truth to myself. We talked for a bit more, mainly about nonsense. Before he left with a hasty apology, he told me that life would not wait for me, would not stay still while I tried to catch up to it, so I had to make the attempt to chase after it in return. I remember Tomoyo saying something along those lines. I thought about following that advice.

What did I want in life? I thought I wanted power and security, but with Tomoyo gone, I had begun to see that I needed something else in life. Was that something love that everybody seemed to be seeking? What did love offer me? Companionship? The feeling of belonging, of rightness? That zest for existence and the happiness with oneself? But, wasn't that what Tomoyo made me feel? I feel like a stone-faced hypocrite here. How can I be saying one thing, yet be secretly yearning for that same thing I refuted? While on one hand, I had sworn that love was a lie, Tomoyo had told me that the emotion is what I needed, and I believed her. How can that be?

I heard distant music wafting down the streets; I hadn't even considered the time in my brooding; it was almost past nine. I had work the next day. Oddly enough, my thoughts turned to my boss (argh!) and the interview I was supposed to submit the following week. I paused in my stride, caught slightly off guard with that turn of thoughts. Since when have I stopped looking at Tomoyo as an object to be interviewed for the sole purpose of a pay check and started to think of her as the my one driving force? Since when had she invaded my body and mind completely and refused to let go? When had I let her? Syaoran had told me to seize chances when they knocked on my door. Tomoyo had offered me a chance for happiness, a chance to live. Did I dare to leave it be?

I realized that without Tomoyo, my life was dull. After just a brief moment with her, I had gained so much lust for life, for her presence. I really did need her to survive, to be truly alive.

Through her smiles, touches and eyes, she had shown me real pleasure and happiness, and I couldn't help but crave for more, starved for those sensation due to years in solitude. I suddenly wanted everything that she offered so willingly. I had wanted that same thing I witnessed on Sakura and Syaoran's faces, I wanted the same joy, the same glow as they had.

I had wandered into my apartment close to midnight, surprisingly giddy, excitement bubbling in my stomach. Spinel Sun looked up at me from where he was curled near the shoe rack, blinking his large eyes wonderingly. If I didn't know any better, I would have sworn that he was shocked to see me so wound up after nearly two weeks (twelve point fifty-six days) on a depression binge.

I leaned down and ruffled the soft fur on his head. He meowed in protest when I picked him up and carried him with me to the couch. "You know what?" I asked him in uncharacteristically cooing voice. "I had just made a lifesaving decision."

(tbc...?)

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(1) Touya Akira from Hiraku no Go ^^;;;

Eriol didn't quite make the connection between Syaoran's Sakura and Tomoyo's Sakura because the lovebirds were too far away and because the pictures of her he'd seen in Tomoyo's apartment were very old. Ehehe...