AN: Ok, this was a pretty stupid idea, updating on Halloween night ^^;; You readers are all probably going to be out there trick-or-treating and partying, I know I am =P Wooott, but I guess this is my gift to you all instead of candy; an update! So enjoy and have a great night out for those who are celebrating ^^
Disclaimer: CCS doesn't belong to me, it belongs to CLAMP =(
Chapter Thirteen: Reality
-Back into the future-
Meiling's Point of View
And that's how I found her when I got off the plane the day before Tomoyo-chan's funeral. I had found an empty apartment room, with no Syaoran. He had not been at the airport to pick me up, nor was he home to welcome me. At that time, I was extremely mad, thinking how heartless he could be. But then all those stupid thoughts ran out of my head when Syaoran returned nearly at one in the morning.
It was obvious he was tired, his eyes slightly blood-shot and his hear even more disheveled then usual. I was watching TV in the living room when he came back, still a bit jet-lagged. He didn't even notice I was there until I walked up to him and asked if he was ok.
And then he simply stared at me and his eyes told me no. He was not okay.
"Is it because of Tomoyo-chan?" I had asked, thinking her death was still shocking him. "You never did tell me how..." my voice trailed away when Syaoran headed to his room without another word.
I followed like a shadow. Silent but right behind.
"...Is it Sakura-chan?" I had asked, slightly nervous at my cousin's strange behavior.
He stopped walking then, his hand on the knob to his room. I thought he nodded, but I wasn't too sure until he entered his room and threw himself at his neatly made bed. I looked around, loving the familiarity of my cousin's room, my former crush too. At least some things were still the same. I crept to his bed and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. I felt like crying for no reason whatsoever.
I didn't even know what happened.
"What's wrong?" I asked gently. So gentle I couldn't even recognize my own voice.
"...Everything," he had answered.
And I soon learned that everything was not an understatement.
Syaoran had brought me to the hospital. Not the regular hospital though. The hospital for treating special people. Special in a way. He had not told me the reason, but I knew if he had wanted to he would have.
So cluelessly I went with him. And cluelessly I had entered that room where once my former good friend occupied. I was surprised, no shocked, to see her sitting there at the edge of the bed in one of those horrid hospital gowns. She had turned her head to me and I thought she looked everything but abnormal. Why was she in the mental hospital then?
But then she smiled strangely, a smile the Sakura in my memories didn't have. "Shhh, you're speaking too loud...I can't hear anything at all."
I bit my lip to stop it from trembling. Maybe she did have a reason for why she was here. I had turned to Syaoran with wide-eyes, a tint of hope still floating in the surface of my mind. Maybe I was just hallucinating this scene.
He turned back to look at me and his eyes were filled with sorrow. "Meiling, meet Sakura. I doubt she'll remember you though...as you can see she's not quite in her mind," he said this all with a strange, steady voice. But it was a mask again. Syaoran was good at those, I had learned ever since we grew up together.
"Oh just tell me what's wrong," I nearly begged as I turned to look at Sakura again. She was still smiling and staring at the wall.
"I did," he repeated in that steady voice again. "She's crazy."
And that statement brought me to stay in Tomoeda for a few months. A few painful months of watching those around her wilt and fade, having spurts of hope occasionally, and loosing it as quickly as it had come. The flame was flickering and ready to blow dry on our candle's of hope.
She only seemed to be getting worse.
So now I'm just sitting out here, in the night in front of the hospital. It feels like a second home for I have been here so many times. Daily almost. I feel like I've got to known Sakura better. Even if it isn't Sakura, the real Sakura. Maybe when she snaps out of it, she won't remember all the times I've spent by her bedside, making paper stars with her.
But I don't care. I'll treasure those moments like any other. Even if they aren't normal and regular memories of good times with your friends. No amusement parks, no movies, no malls...just the white, stale air of the hospital to remember in my mind. But that's ok. As long as Sakura thought she was safe.
I've been sitting out here eversince this morning. I don't feel like going back to the apartment. I don't feel like moving. I know Syaoran is still in there, probably just staring at Sakura. I think he's the one that has the most hope in him. Maybe because he had known her better than the rest of us before she fell into her own little world. Maybe because he loves her.
I smiled to myself and at the full moon in the sky. No I won't pity Sakura too much. She has someone who cares and loves her. She'll always have that special someone out there, thinking of her smiles and her laughter.
It's enough to make you envious of Sakura. Really.
She'll just have to wake up and find out what a lucky person she actually is. In a way, I suppose.
Syaoran's Point of View
So we were left with the mystery. The puzzle. The two main people invovled in the situation were both insane. Crazy. That day I had left the police station, with new feeling and new thoughts spinning my head. I had wondered what kind of life Nishio led. It didn't seem too bright. Maybe it wasn't entirely his fault afterall...maybe it was just fate and his bad luck to have been the son of two suicidal parents.
But then the police found out the mother was actually killed. By the father. They found his fingerprints on the mother's neck. All over. And then the father decided to kill himself.
That really got me thinking.
What type of family was that?
But I decided, that wasn't in my area to think about. My focus was Sakura. And so Meiling, Sakura's brother and father, and I spent months by Sakura, sheltering her from whatever possible problem that could occur in a hospital. We became overprotective, we all wanted to keep an eye on her twenty four hours a day. But I was always the last person to leave.
The one to say good night to her when she would simply not reply and continue to prance around the room as though she were dancing in some endless green field.
She probably was. In her mind.
And now, those memories of the Sakura, the crazy one, seem so distant and far. Because now, the Sakura I see sitting in the black leather chair is normal. She seems so at least. Or maybe all those hours of longing for her to get better was getting to me. Maybe I'm going crazy too.
"But then I got scared because it was always so quiet in my world," Sakura's voice was soft again. "Too quiet."
I listened, the anxiety in my soul nearly tearing me apart. What if she fell into her silent state after she stopped speaking? But I knew her story...was that all she wanted? For someone to hear her story and to understand what happened to her?
I understood. I really did.
And I was scared, frightened, terrorized for her at what she had gone through. But the overwhelming happiness that she had survived through it all seemed to chase away all the bad. Maybe if it had been my in her shoes, I might have cracked and might even be dead now.
I didn't even feel angry. Angry at Nishio Yori. I pitied him actually. Pitied what little things he had in life. Pitied what he was born into and was lead to.
But I didn't care about Nishio Yori. All I care about now is Sakura. Sakura getting better.
"So..." Sakura paused slightly and for one fleeting moment I thought she would remain silent. "I decided to leave." I let out a breath of relief. I wonder how many times I had held my breath throughout the time Sakura had been speaking. But then realization dawned on me as her most recent words rang in my head, "I decided to leave."
Decided to leave where?
I couldn't help but ask out loud, "...leave where?"
I was hesitant to say anything at all. Maybe I'd break her train of thought. But no. She continued. She answered me.
"Leave my sanctuary," she shrugged slightly. I held back my urge to spin her around and stare at her face hard. I might scare her and she'd fall away again. Sink back into those murky depths of solitude.
"Leave my world..." she continued, her voice a meer breath. "It was a weird feeling when I left my fantasy land behind. I felt like I was floating. Floating up and up...out of water I had drowned in. Crawled out from some pit I had fell into..."
I sat, my brow slightly furrowed.
"...and I'm almost out of the water. Almost out of that pit. But I'm missing something," she explained. "Maybe it's that little bit of inspiration...inspiration to live I guess? To return to reality. Why should I come back, I keep on asking myself...over and over again..."
She needed a reason.
A reason to come back?
I felt my heart race and my mind muddle at the many reasons why she should come back. Had to come back.
I closed my eyes and let whatever it was take over me. It was like running a race and you could see the finish line just ahead, and that spurt of energy and adrenaline kicks in and you're ready to run the fastest you could ever run just to break that red rope.
And I was more than ready to break that rope. Cross that finish line once and for all.
"I love you Sakura."
And silence met my ears. That deafening silence and I was sure I had broken the spell this time. Sakura was gone again. Sinking back into her insanity probably. Leaving the world behind. Reality behind. Me behind. The miracle of her speaking at all had ended.
We were back to where we had begun.
I felt my heart sink, my heart nearly stop as the great disappointment finally hit me.
"Do you really?"
That voice. For a seoncd I thought I was speaking to myself. For a second I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. But when I opened my eyes again and let the real world meet me again, I was embraced with the beautiful picture of Sakura, right in front of me, her face inches away from mine. I thought maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I had fainted from the anxiety. But no, I could feel her rythmic breath on my face, her eyes were too real and clear to be a dream.
And I realized she had spoken.
And I realized she was ok. I was ok. We were all ok.
"Yeah..." I found myself answering breathlessly, simply taken away by the fact she had moved her chair from one spot to another and was sitting and staring back at me with a gaze I knew to be Sakura. The Sakura I fell in love with. My Sakura. "Yeah," I repeated with more loudness. "I do. I really do."
She tilted her angelic face to her right, her eyes never so enchanting, never so mesmerizing as they filled with something other than blank emptiness of insanity. They had something in them. They were no longer hollow.
"Pull me up then," her lips didn't seem to move. "Pull me out of the water. Out of the pit."
I didn't think I understood her, but did I care? I stood up slowly from my seat and offered one hand to her.
She responded by placing one of her smooth hands into mine, my fingers automatically wrapping around hers yet not too tightly. I was still being cautious. Still scared at what may go wrong.
I felt her hand give off a bit of pressure, holding mine. I was met with a wave of confidence as I helped her to a standing position, away from that chair she sat in for hours on end when she had been in the depths of that murky water.
Maybe I really was pulling her out of the water. Maybe I was really bringing her back and out of the black, dark pit.
Her breath was still warm, her forehead touching mine and the tip of her nose grazing mine, sending a shiver down my spine. All the exhausation of sitting up and watching her for months, all the pain of watching her sink into insanity, just seemed to disappear almost as if it had never been there at all.
"Is it safe?" she murmured, her eyes fluttering, looking into mine, searching for truth, for something.
I smiled at her, a reassuring smile as I took her other hand. Holding them both tightly. "It's safe Sakura, it's going to be alright."
"Safe?" she seemed to be tasting the word on her lips and on her tongue as if it were some new word. "Safe...," she repeated with a smile. "I won't get lost in reality again?"
I shook my head, "Never again Sakura."
"You mean it?" she whispered, her eyes never leaving mine.
I felt my smile widdening as I came even closer to her, if that was possible. "Let me show you. Let me show you reality all over again."
And then I kissed her.
Sakura's Point of View
When I finished my story, letting my words weave something as fine as silk, I felt something lift inside of me. Something heavy and horrible that had been holding me down, pushing me down, deeper into those waters of insanity. It was the cry of wanting to tell somebody what turmoil was running in my soul, what was eating away at me. The guilt, the pain. Everything.
And finally I was able to release it. To get it all out as if someone had just knocked over a glass of water. Just as sudden as that I found myself floating away from my quiet world of fake perfection. Where everything was right.
I found myself talking. Speaking. Out loud and no longer in my mind, and to my own little world where there was nobody to talk to. I found myself looking at someone who had always been there in my life, if he knew so or not. I found someone I had missed so dearly when he wasn't there, someone I had forgotten when he was really there in front of me.
I found myself staring into the eyes of Li Syaoran.
I found myself spilling out my darkest secrets, my most painful memories, all out to him and only him.
And then I finally finished the story I had lived through. I found myself so close to the surface. So close to breaking out of the water that surrounded me. The darkness. I just needed that one last thing. That one last burst to push my out and let me break loose.
And Syaoran did just that. I could always count on Syaoran. Always. And I felt something I never felt before. Emotions stirring in the pit of stomach as warm, amber eyes met mine.
When I finally broke out and found myself back on planet earth, found reality surrounding me like some new found land, I realized how insane my own little world I had been. I found how unreal it had been. How fake, how fantasy-filled it was. The grass had been green, there had been no rain. There was no chaotic sounds, no disturbance at all.
And I learned that it was impossible. Impossible to fool myself any longer.
That alternate world I had created for myself was nothing but a chimera. A mirage. Reality would not always be sunny, would not always hold the greenest grass possible. There will be the occasional grey clouds, the occasional heat waves that bring dry and wilting grass.
Reality will never be perfect. But reality changes. When rain comes, sun will follow. When sun comes, rain will follow. I decided that I'd be okay. I'd be okay stepping into the world I grew up in. I'd be okay living with grey skies and crisp autumn leaves. I'd be okay living in a world filled with my loved ones.
Maybe I'll visit my world when I sleep at night. Or when I'm feeling down. But I'll always know I'll come back. I'll always know I won't get lost and won't drown again and be pulled down by insanity.
Because I have somebody, on the other end, who will always be there. Always ready to pull me out when it's time. Always ready to bring me back with warmth and love.
I decided I wasn't living such a bad life afterall. Just this simple moment seemed even more perfect than my alternate world.
Just this simple moment of being in the arms' of a man I love. Just this simple moment with his lips on mine and mine on his.
This was my perfect world. My perfect moment.
AN: Epilogue is next...I suppose we'll get to find out what exactly happened to Yori *grumble grumble (who cares about him LOL)* But I guess I can't just leave it hanging...I hope you all got the part that Sakura is OK now. As in NOT CRAZY, and awake...S+S floof =)