The Seal Beast knew something was wrong. He'd lived with Sakura long enough to recognise the signs. She no longer laughed. Her bounding steps on the stairs were replaced by a slow ponderous gait. She talked less and less about high school, preferring to do her study in silence.

She became withdrawn and introspective. Her zest for life was gone.

Kero waited and watched and worried. He was Sakura's advocate for matters relating to the Cards and magic; it wasn't his place to advise her on affairs of the heart. But when he saw Sakura staring blankly out her window one night too many, he could remain silent no longer.

"Sakura? Sakura!!"

She blinked as Kero fluttered between her and the window. "What?"

"Why are you looking out the window? What are you looking for?" His tail lashed from side to side in furious counterpoint to his flapping wings.

"I...I'm not looking for anything!"

Kero frowned and folded his forepaws, still hovering in mid-air. "You can't hide the truth from me. I thought you were over it, but it seems old habits die hard."

"What habits? Kero-chan, what are you talking about?"

"The moon! I've seen that wistful look you get when you see it through your window. But you're wasting your time. It may be there one night, but it will have moved on in a few days time. It's not worth giving your heart to it."

Sakura couldn't quite make sense of Kero's logic, but she blushed anyway. "Kero-chan, I haven't given anything to the moon. You're imagining--"

"It's not fair!" Kero landed on the desk with a vicious thump. "What's so special about the moon anyway?" He turned to snarl at the gibbous moon hanging in the sky, a distant silver teardrop amid a background of velvet black. "Why don't you ever look at the sun with a dreamy look on your face?"

"Umm...because it would make me blind?"

"That's no excuse! All you have to do is buy a special filter to block UV rays, and then you can see the sun all you want! It's not that hard."

Sakura was patient by nature, but she was tired of being chastised over nothing. "I'm not looking at the moon, Kero-chan! I was just...thinking."

"You're dreaming, not thinking! You'd rather dream of Yue and the brat, two gloomy souls powered by the one gloomy Moon. Admit it!"

"They aren't gloomy...well, not exactly..." Her voice faded off as she realised Kero had a valid point: Yue and Syaoran were brooding and reflective by nature.

Kero shook his head. "The moon is trouble, Sakura. Sometimes it is close enough for you to touch and other nights it is distant. Sometimes it vanishes altogether and other times it is round and full. How can you depend on something so capricious and unreliable?"

The quirky comparison made her smile. "But the Sun is much more reliable. Is that it, Kero-chan?"

Kero's little chest puffed out with pride. "Of course! I will always be here for you, Sakura. You can count on me."

"Oh, Kero-chan." She swept him up in an impulsive hug against her shoulder, happy and miserable at the same time. "It...it means a lot..." She blinked back tears and found herself sniffling.

"Sakura! Why are you crying?"

"I...I'm just...it's nothing..."

Kero flew to the dressing table, seized several tissues with paws, and gave them to Sakura. After a muttered thanks, Sakura wiped away her tears and blew her nose until it was bright red.

"It's just that...hearing you say that you'd be here for me made me realise..." She swallowed. "It made me realise that no one else has ever said that to me before. Syaoran-kun, Yue-san...they never..."

Kero watched her intently as understanding dawned. "You mean no human."

"Yes. It's not that I don't appreciate what you've said, but...it would mean a lot to me if it came from a human as well."

"What about your father? He cares for you, doesn't he?"

"Of course he does, but he's family. It's not the same."

Kero sighed. As far as he was concerned, Sakura was splitting hairs. A human was a human was a human. "How about Tomoyo? She's your best friend."

Sakura lowered her gaze, and twisted the tissue between slender fingers. "She's in Hollywood at the moment."

"But not for long. Another five months or so, and she'll be back in Tomoeda again."

Maybe five months seemed like a blink of an eye to a magical beast several hundred years old, but it seemed like an eternity to Sakura. And after the way she'd hurt Tomoyo's feelings at the airport... "I'm not sure if she will come back to me, Kero-chan."

"Don't be silly! Tomoyo is one of the few who saw your potential as the Card Mistress from the beginning. She would never desert you." Kero saw Sakura wince. "What? Did something happen?"

"No...yes."

Kero leapt to all fours, tiny wings quivering at the ready. "What happened?" he demanded. "Were you attacked?"

"No, no. No one attacked me. It's just..." She twisted the tissue in her fingers until it tore in two. "I...Tomoyo..."

"What? What?" Kero's eyes were wide with excitement, his wings perked up like pricked ears. "You and Tomoyo...?"

"She...touched me."

"Is that all?"

"It was the way...she touched me." Sakura stared at her hands, her face red with shame. Her hair fell forward over her eyes, shielding her tortured expression. "No one has ever done that to me before."

Kero sat down again. It didn't sound like Sakura had been placed in mortal danger. "Did she hurt you?"

"No, but..." She dropped the shredded tissue and hugged herself tightly. "I pushed her away. I couldn't take so much...feeling. I didn't mean to hurt her, but I saw the look on her face. It was as if...as if I was hurting inside too." A tear slid down her cheek.

"Sakura, is this what you've been mooning over? Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I...I was so ashamed..." She covered her face with her hands.

Kero flew to the dressing table and carried the entire box of tissues to the desk. He then sat on Sakura's shoulder while she composed herself again.

"You must stop making yourself so miserable. If you keep this up, you'll outdo Yue."

"But I feel so terrible about hurting Tomoyo-chan's feelings," Sakura muttered. "I wish there was something I could do to make it up to her."

Kero frowned. "Tomoyo cares for you very much, Sakura. I can't imagine her holding a grudge against you. As long as you apologised--"

"But I didn't! I...I know I should have, but I..." She worried at her lower lip. "I was so scared."

Kero mused on what he'd been told. Sakura had been extremely vague, but he lived with humans long enough to understand. Clow had touched him with gentle strokes and pats, but it was very different to the touches he bestowed on Yue. There was touching, and then there was touching.

As friends, he'd seen Sakura and Tomoyo hold hands, brush each other's hair, even hug each other. It was obvious that they already cared for each other very much.

"Were you scared of Tomoyo?" Kero asked.

Sakura was silent for a long time. "I don't know," she whispered morosely.

"Do you miss her?"

"Yes." The reply was immediate. "I never wanted her to leave, but she said she wanted to improve her film-making skills so she could make better films of me." She turned to look at Kero. "I never did understand why Tomoyo enjoyed filming me so much. She tried to explain...but I couldn't make sense of it. I tried to convince her to stay, and that was when...it happened. Then the plane had to leave, and we didn't have time to say much else. Tomoyo asked me to look after something for her." Sakura took out the velvet box so Kero could see.

Kero jumped down to the desk. "What is it? A family heirloom?"

"She told me it was the most precious thing to her in the entire world." Sakura opened the box. Inside was a slightly used rabbit-shaped pencil eraser.

Kero gaped. "Is that all? Is that all it is?"

"Yes. I wonder if Tomoyo gave me the wrong box."

Suddenly Kero fluttered up. "Ahhh! I remember! Yes, yes, that's right. Sakura, this is yours, remember?"

"Huh? It's not mine; it's Tomoyo's. She gave it to me."

"But it was the eraser you gave to her! On her first day at school, you gave her an eraser."

Sakura stared at him as he hovered in front of her. "How do you know this?"

"Because I'm the Guardian of the Sakura Cards...and Tomoyo told me. This is the eraser you gave to her! She kept it in a special box, a box you helped to open when you caught Shield. Don't you remember giving it to her?"

"No, it was so long ago." Sakura picked it up with trembling fingers. "Tomoyo kept this after all these years?" she said in a forlorn voice.

"Yes. It was her most precious possession because it was her first memento of her friendship with you. Isn't that sweet?"

"I think it's terrible." Sakura dropped the eraser in the box, snapped it shut and shoved it in her drawer as though it were poisoned. "No one should ever care for another person so much."

"What? Sakura, what are you talking about?"

"The sooner she forgets about her infatuation, the better." Sakura slammed her books shut and pushed back her chair, her movements jerky and awkward. "I'm going to brush my teeth, and go to sleep when I come back. It's been a long day."

Kero blinked in amazement as Sakura stormed out of her room. He'd never seen Sakura so wilfully callous to the feelings of another person. Ever since he had declared her to be Cardcaptor, he had been impressed by her warmth and kindness with everyone, friends and strangers alike.

What had come over her tonight?

Kero eyed the moon. He thought of Yue, distant and suspicious, still clinging to the past.

"Leave her alone," he said to the moon. "She's had enough of your influence already."

With that, he flew to the window and drew the curtains shut, then settled into his little bed in the drawer of Sakura's desk. He had much to think about.

******