Title: A Sweet Blossoming
Author: Yih
Written: January 2002
Disclaimer: All rights of characters are exclusively Clamp.
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"Yue!" exclaimed Sakura as she watched him rush down to the soft grass green garden in a exquisite show of his dynamic wing control. The trace of worry in the anxious smile on her face disappeared as soon as he landed safely within her arm reach. And in her reach, he surely was because she dived toward him to hug his slender body in way that seemed she was grasping for her last bit of hope, like the meaning of her life was entrusted in his form. "I've worried so much about you," she cried out, her face pressed into his chest, "I thought—I can't believe I thought that… You wouldn't do anything to hurt me like he did, would you?"
The tender expression formed on Yue's face at Sakura's fretful greeting and the feel of her light frame against his own sent a pang of guilt into his heart as straight and as true as any of Cupid's arrows. He hadn't even considered Sakura's own anguish if he had indeed committed the act. It wasn't his right to answer the question: "to be or not to be?" That he should permanently himself put into fate's hand and forget about trying to change what had already been written out somewhere in the divine universe. Besides, he was just being selfish in trying to rid himself of his misery and forgetting totally of Sakura's own suffering because that every little delight brought her joy, every little tragedy brought her pain.
"No, no I would never do that," he murmured reassuringly into her ear, his lips brushing lightly against her head. His nose took in the sweet fragrance that he identified so distinctly with Sakura, much like the North Star reminded him of her—the light, the solitary strength, and the beauty—all that was contained, wrapped up into the sweetest soul he knew… Sakura.
"I knew you wouldn't," she whispered achingly like her heart had been about to break if his answer had been even slightly different from what she expected. "Yet, in ways you still remind me of him. But I shouldn't think of him, should I? It only hurts and hurts you, doesn't it? You care for me deeply, I know but I don't deserve do I? By wanting you to be close to me as I do, I bring you the very agony I wish to divulge of myself."
"No, I was just being selfish and foolish," he admitted gravely. "I don't know what I was thinking of by leaving you here when you needed me most." There were things he might of added like how being with her even in this strange atmosphere was settling, serene, and satisfying though it did sting a little that no matter what he did, she might never love him the way he loved her. If there had been a way to bring back the one she loved, he would have given anything to fulfill her wish. But it wasn't possible if the one she loved didn't want her in return.
Love was a sort of agonizing hell and heaven all at the same time.
"It's okay," she replied, leaning back into the comfort of his being. "At least you're here now."
Her words… her words… would be the death of him yet. The hope bursting forth, only to be cruelly yet unknowingly crushed by the expression on her face, the brush away of her hands, her very body language had nuances of not being ready. Perhaps, she would never be ready. He was and had been her first true love—now that he was gone, that only reinforced the mystic of what might and could have been.
"Yes, I'll always be here for you," he echoed his words lightly. "You know that don't you? I've been chosen to be your guardian since the beginning probably, and that I will always be. You can count on that. I'll be by your side, no matter what happens. I hope you are never sad again, but that is unrealistic—so I've got to be by you so that when you do face sadness, I'll be there to brighten your day."
"Yue?" she softly said while leaning from the embrace slightly to look up into his moonlight eyes. "You are too good for me."
"So you say," he responded quickly. "So you say. But do you ever once consider," he said in a deceptively seductive voice, cupping her face as if he was going to kiss her again, "that you are too good for this world?"
Sakura chuckled. "Of course!" She flashed him one of her killingly sweet smiles. "If anything, you're too good for this world, Yue! I mean, have you looked yourself lately? You remind me of an angel… a guardian angel. Something so special that it shouldn't even exist in this world, but you do—you do exist, which all the more miraculous. If you weren't here…" her voice trailed off as her throat tightened with emotions.
"I'll be here for you," he affirmed strongly. "You don't need to worry about that."
"Then was my premonition wrong? I saw you… I saw you about to jump… No, you were jumping---" her voice faltering like if she continued the reality would come crashing down onto her. "I must have been wrong, you're too strong to do anything of that sort. Yes, that was silly. It must have been a nightmare in the day, that would make it a day-mare, wouldn't it?" she laughed uncomfortably at her little word play, searching his expression for some kind of gauge of what he was thinking.
It pained Yue to see her try to convince herself that he hadn't been about to kill himself. It killed him inside a little see the worry, the anxiety in her body movements, her body language. If there was one thing fault in Sakura was that she was as readable as a book, as open as knowledge is if one cared to search for it. But that was the thing he loved about her, her honesty, her integrity, her truth, and most of all—that she was innocent of evil and corruption that he saw daily in himself.
"Yes, I was just silly, eh?" she nudged him in the side with her elbow.
"What?" he asked, startled from his thoughts.
"My premonition… of you jumping," she clarified when she realized the strange tone in his voice had to do with being out of this world for a bit.
"No," he admitted truthfully, "your premonition was correct. I jumped."
Sakura's eyes widened in surprise, then shock, and finally terror and complete dismay. "But why?" she asked in a voice that was filled with uncertainty. "Why would you do such a thing? It can't be because of— but… I must have done something, didn't I? I'm sorry that I hurt you, Yue. Perhaps, I should leave. I should let you go, shouldn't I? I was right before, wasn't I? That I harm you by being close to you."
"No, that isn't true," he answered while grabbing her arm to prevent her from running away from him. "You only hurt me when you aren't near me," he spoke quietly, but with truth. "I was being unreasonable then. I was trying to keep up with my training you see," he explained, coming up with a lame excuse that both of them knew wasn't true but needed to believe at least for now, "diving is good for my wing strength."
"Oh," Sakura said, though she knew that he wasn't telling her the truth, "I see. But it's dangerous. Next time, let me know so I can catch you with Windy if you want to do such serious training," she reminded him with a cheerful smile, though there was a strain of worry in her voice.
"I will," he reassured her. "Sakura… I…"
"Yes, Yue?" she said his name so sweetly that it sent a rush of hot blood into his head, thinking that perhaps now would be the perfect time to confess his love for her. His eternal vow of love that he felt grow stronger over every minute of every day. But, what if he were rejected again? "Yue?"
"Sakura… I…"
"Sakura!" yelled Kero, flying into the room at breakneck speed. "There's someone at the door!"
Yue felt like sinking into oblivion. He didn't doubt that he knew who it was. It could only be one person. He had been lucky to reach here first, which was why he had dared to fly out in the open looking like a lost but frantic angel. He had taken a chance that he might have been discovered even though it had been a risk well taken. Now, he felt again that his hope was slipping away much like his dream already felt lost to him.
"Who is it, Kero?" she inquired.
"I don't know," replied Kero, "but whoever it is, he's tall."
Sakura shook her long, now grown out cherry brown hair, laughing joyfully. "Well, let's go see who is then, shall we?" she asked the guardian of the clow book, but also threw a look back to Yue indicating that she'd like him to come as well, knowing that he was an ever eager hermit. "Yue, are you coming?"
He nodded, following reluctantly behind the two happily chatting away like it was another normal day. He was relieved that he hadn't told Sakura of his feelings and at the same time disappointed that he hadn't gotten the chance. "Yes, I'm coming," he answered, giving a half-hearted attempt to smile so that Kero wouldn't ask him all his nosy questions that he bombarded upon him when he could.
He felt a sick, nervous anxiety pass over like a wave of emotion akin to a bone chilling fear waiting for Sakura to open the door. He didn't have a chance now.
"Kaiju!" exclaimed an all too familiar voice.
The sigh of relief coming out of Yue didn't go unnoticed by Kero's fairly perceptive vision. "What's up?" he questioned with curiosity. "I know something's up. You seemed to be showing too much emotion for you anyways, so you might as well tell me. I know I'm not that especially insightful, so if I'm seeing it—I'm sure Sakura can."
But their conversation was interrupted by the sound of an aggrieved Touya. "Owwww! You really are a kaiju!" he yelled, hobbling around on one leg trying to keep his other foot from getting stomped on by his sweet, though fierce imouto.
"I am not a kaiju!" she screamed back. "You're the kaiju!" Touya did the only effective thing he could think of to shut Sakura up, he step aside and showed her the person standing behind him. "Tomoyo-chan!" she cried out delightfully. "What are you doing here?"
Tomoyo lowered her eyes for a brief second, blushing lightly as she kept sending furious glances toward Touya before grabbing his hand and pulling him to her side. Sakura caught all this and threw her best friend a clear question mark of what's going on here? If anything, Tomoyo started turning that much redder. "Me and Touya are… well, you see we're sort of…," she glared for a second time at Touya. "Why can't you tell her?"
"Because you wanted to tell her," he reminded her.
"Well, we're kind of…"
"Dating," finished Touya for Tomoyo.
"What?!" shouted Sakura and Kero at the same time. Sakura's voice was happy, though surprised—she was delighted. Kero, on the other hand was almost in disbelief, not wanting to believe his favorite person, other than Sakura was dating his biggest, well second biggest enemy! "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" asked Sakura with a smile plastered on her face of pure happiness.
"Well…" started off Tomoyo, "we didn't start really going out until about a month ago."
Touya nodded with the confirmation of the truth. "We didn't even know it would work out at first, so we didn't want to tell you to get your hopes up too high and then have us break up. But we think we're going to be just fine together," he added, pulling Tomoyo close to his side.
"I couldn't be happier!" Sakura pounced onto them, hugging both tightly.
It was then that Touya noticed Yue standing in the background, a deep shadow surrounded him in an almost bleak manner. It reminded him of a scene with Yukito, but he didn't like to think of his old friend now, especially with the way they had parted. He was quite sure that the good-byes had injured Yukito far more than it had him, and he had never intended to hurt his still best friend in the world.
"I know you're looking at me," Yue finally spoke, lifting his head.
"Yes, I was looking at you—staring at you actually," Touya told him honestly. "I was remembering the past. You do resemble Yukito in ways that I hadn't noticed before."
"Maybe because you haven't been looking that hard," he informed Touya simply. "What I was, I always am."
Touya narrowed his eyes, peering down onto Yue with discerning eyes, almost like he knew him too well. But his stance relaxed and he asked, "I wonder, was Yukito's personality ever influenced by you?"
"His nature was influenced by his environment. But as he was created as a part of me, I suppose in everything created a part of the creator is placed within it," Yue explained.
"Yes, I suppose that is true," he reluctantly accepted. "But were your feelings concerning… me the same as his?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Because I ask," he answered bluntly. "Because I need to know."
Yue hesitated to respond to his question, but remembering what he had said to Eriol earlier gave him a bit of courage, at least less reservations. "Even though you ask me, it is not the same as I am Yukito. Yukito was me, but Yukito being me was not I being Yukito, do you understand? It's like how some things are others, but the others can't be those some things."
"Yes, that makes sense," Touya replied, "but you still haven't answered my question."
"The way I feel for you is not what Yukito felt for you," he said gravely, half of his long mane covering his face. "It's different, though there is emotion."
"Yue?"
"Yes, Touya-san?"
"If I ever need to talk about Yukito, I can come to you right? I don't think Sakura would understand…" Touya shifted his line of vision to where Sakura and Tomoyo were noticeably chatting about the new relationship developments. "I know she wouldn't understand, well not in the way I need her to. She'd be sympathetic, but in the end, I'm not quite sure she'd really get it. And you were there watching us like a voyeur the entire time, so you'd be able to provide insight no one else could, right?" the tone of his voice was hopeful and slightly pleading like he needed Yue to say yes to his request.
Yue also thought that Touya underestimated Sakura's sensitivity and empathy levels, but he kept that opinion strictly to himself. Much like he kept a lot of things close to his heart, not to be disclosed. "yes, you can talk about Yukito to me any time you want. Just call first and don't startle Kero into screaming, please."
"No problem. But that wasn't my fault," Touya added.
Yue raised his eyebrow in question, requiring an answer to contradict his belief.
"Tomoyo insisted that we tell Sakura."
"That would be for the best," Yue agreed.
"Yes, but…" Touya's voice trailed off, knowing the inner struggles somewhat, but not comprehending all that Yue saw and kept to himself.
"It will be okay. In the end, all things will be okay."
Author's Note: I don't know how consistently I'll be able to keep these updates because I'll be switching between Reminiscent and this fanfic but I did this one first because I had peculiar inspiration. It came easily and it came long, if you guys hadn't noticed this chapter is a good 700 words longer than the rest. I now have Calculus AB, US History, English, and Spanish that are all AP's so I'm going to be VERY busy during the weekdays (when I normally write). I also have a Hamlet analyze persuasion/tone essay due Monday, but I did this first like an idiot, which leads into a Shakespeare imagery research paper –shivers- I'm going to die. Anyhow, you know the drill leave a review with your email if you want me to tell you about the next update. And please review, I've noticed the reviews have dropped off as the series has continued… do you want this series or not?