Tomoyo went over her emails that afternoon using her mother's laptop. She and Sonomi were lounging by a small café near the airport.
"Tomoyo, you are unusually quiet today," said her mother, looking at her intently. Whatever the woman was thinking, only she knew.
"Just tired," she replied, looking up from the screen briefly. "I have lots of emails to answer everyday, and I have a matchmaking project right now."
"Take it easy," advised the older Daidouji. "The lovers would survive a day without you."
She smiled. "Just a few more minutes." She went back to reading the mails, and something caught her eye. A love letter to her?
She shook her head smilingly. A lot of guys had tried to court her both offline and online, but she was always quick to discourage these suitors, stating that she wanted to concentrate more on helping out those in need of love guidance. That she wasn't ready for a relationship yet because she still had so many things to accomplish.
She then noticed that it had been marked as read. But she hadn't read this mail yet! Meaning someone had read this already before her.
She sighed. Must be Sakura; she was the only one who knows the password of her email address anyway.
"By the way, Tomoyo…" Her mother turned serious. "We have something to talk about."
She nodded and set the laptop aside.
Eriol read the saved copy of the email he got from Tomoyo's inbox for the nth time.
Dear Nakoudo-san,
I have a problem that only you can solve. I see you in Tomoeda almost everyday, and I can feel that I love you more and more each day. You see me everyday, Nakoudo-san, and we even talk. I treasure those moments.
Please make me feel the happiest man in the world by replying to this.
Your Most Ardent Admirer that Eagerly Awaits Your Reply
He exhaled sharply. This guy had every tendency to become a stalker. And the idea of a totally obsessed stranger lurking around his Daidouji-san was making him feel sick and very, very furious at the same time.
Had the letter been a hard copy, he could have crumpled it and tossed it to the incinerator. When he gets his hand on this psycho…
"I hope Daidouji-san has read this already…she must understand that she's in danger," he mumbled.
The next day, Eriol grew even more worried when Tomoyo didn't come to the house, and didn't see even Nakuru and Yukito.
He looked at the phone and fought back the urge to pick it up and dial the number of Tomoyo's house. He might just look silly if it was she who answers the phone herself and finds out that he was getting paranoid just because of one silly email.
Nakuru came into the room, holding a shirt and a…sewing kit? His forehead creased. "N-Nakuru?"
She looked at him blankly, then down at the shirt. She smiled. "Oh, this? It's Yukito' shirt, and he tore it awhile ago while he was plying soccer. I volunteered to fix it for him."
"You know how to use a needle?" He was amazed.
"I-I'll learn." She smiled. "I mean, it can't be that hard, right?"
He honestly didn't know what to say. He didn't create Nakuru Akizuki to be anything but her genki and often-impetuous personality. Sewing for someone was definitely out of the question.
Is this the extent of what that nakoudo can do? He shook his head in disbelief.
"Master Eriol, what are you doing awhile ago, staring at the phone?" the servant asked.
He shrugged. "Nothing."
"Are you sure? You look like you're waiting for someone to call or you yourself are itching to make the call," she said.
"Why would I be doing that?" he asked through gritted teeth. He didn't remember making Nakuru sensitive. Perhaps one of the wonders that nakoudo did.
"I don't know." Nakuru sat down on the floor and placed the sewing kit in front of her. She took out a spool of thread and proceeded to compare it to the color of the fabric she was holding. Dissatisfied, she chose another spool of thread and repeated the same process until she found the color that matches the shirt color.
She then took out the needle and tried to insert the thread into it, but to no avail.
Eriol watched the whole scene, amused. It was kind of delightful to watch his stitch-ignorant servant play seamstress.
Nakuru tucked a stray wisp of her hair behind her ear and struggled even more in inserting the thread into the almost microscopic eye of the needle.
"Nakuru," he said gently. "Let me use my magic to help you."
She blinked, then hid the shirt behind her back. "Uh-uh. I'm doing this on my own."
"But you're just having a hard time," he reasoned.
Nakuru shook her head stubbornly. "It doesn't matter. I want to sew his shirt all by myself." She went back to her work. "I'll get this right later, just wait and see."
"Nakuru…"
His servant had already figured out a pattern. She placed the needle in an almost forty-five degree angle before slightly wetting the piece of thread with her mouth. Carefully, she inserted the thread into the eye.
Her eyes lit up when she was able to thread it into the needle finally.
Eriol felt himself smile slowly too. The pride in his servant's face was unmistakable, and he couldn't help but feel proud of her too.
He knelt down beside her. "Good work. But next time…" He picked up the threader. "You can always use this." He proceeded to show her how the threader works, and he laughed out loud when he saw how amazed his servant was.
He watched her knot the thread. "Why are you sewing his shirt?"
"Because it's torn," she replied simply.
"Yes, well, and you can use your power to mend it," he said.
She shrugged. "Doing things like this for Yukito makes me happy."
"Why?" he wanted to know.
"Why 'why'?" she asked back. "It makes me happy. It's a reason isn't it?"
He paused, and she smiled in satisfaction. If it was because she silenced him or if it was because she was finally able to knot the thread satisfactorily, he didn't know.
"If I begin to, say, cry right now, and I tell you that it makes me happy, won't you ask me why?" he tried again.
"No need. You have told me that it makes you happy, so I don't need to ask anymore." She began a running stitch-like baste on the cloth.
"Won't you want to know why certain things make me feel happy?"
She shrugged. "It ruins the happiness. If we examine things too closely one by one, whether we like it or not, we see flaws. And when we see imperfections, it creates doubts in us, then the happiness is ruined." She gestured to the shirt. "See, Master? Sewing for Yukito makes me happy, but if I try to know why, I realize that it's because I really like him a lot, and he likes me back, but not in a way I want him to do so, then I get sad. And as I brood on that, I suddenly realize that these stitches I am doing are clumsily-made, and that he might just laugh at my efforts."
Eriol paused. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Nakuru beamed. "I told you, I try not to think about the rationales of the things that make me happy."
He fell silent as she continued to do those wild, unaligned stitches.
"Yukito once told me something- something that Tomoyo told him while he was still mourning for Touya," she said quietly. "Do you know why there is a science for almost everything in this world, except for love and happiness when these two things are really the biggest mysteries in life, even bigger than the unknown finiteness of the universe?" She reached for the scissors and cut the excess thread.
"It's because these two things are irrational. Science is objective and strongly based on rules and reasons, while the two are subjective and based on feelings. If you conduct a scientific study on love, you'll realize that, 'Hey, love is stupid. Happiness is overrated. There are so many convoluted and intricately woven problems, and even more complex and tumultuous hypotheses that can be drawn from them. Too many to study in fact, if we let history attest to it. The search for love and happiness has raised peasants to princes and submerged kings to vagabonds. Many lived and died for love, even without a sound scientific reason."
"Love and happiness do not use scientific methods to be solved; some utilizes serendipity, another scientifically-unexplained thing. While others are solved by fate. Majority are solved by que sera sera. Love and happiness also give no sure secure conclusions. All of these frustrate scientists."
She smiled at the quietly listening Eriol. "In short, do not ask why anymore, or you'll lose it." She resumed her needlework, leaving Eriol in contemplation.
The mage, on the other hand, was smiling. He didn't need to bother himself why he enjoys being with Tomoyo a lot, or why he couldn't get enough of her kisses. He didn't have to know why; never had to, or he would lose it, just as Nakuru said.
Yet within him was a part disagreeing to that somehow.
"But there's one thing you must know, Master," she said quietly. "What Yukito told me he said was an act done by people smart enough not to be bothered by things like that. But people who are still willing to know the whys of life despite everything else…they are wise fools."
She held the shirt she was sewing up on the air, inspecting her needlework.
"There!"
Eriol looked at the clumsy stitches, but they seemed much more beautiful than they were awhile ago, because now he could see that in this stitches lay the strong feelings of a woman in love.
And in the end, he realized that no matter how easy it was not to think of whys anymore, he still would struggle to discover at least one why in his life.
Why he was bewitched so much by the nakoudo, Daidouji Tomoyo.
"Tsukishiro, the stitch pattern on your shirt is great!" teased Yukito's teammates when they saw the wild patterns of a cross between a running stitch and a blind stitch on the side of the soccer team shirt.
Yukito beamed proudly. "Akizuki-san made it for me."
"Ah," said the boys knowingly.
That evening, Eriol opened Tomoyo's inbox again. To his dismay, he found another email from the same guy. He opened the letter.
By the time that he got to the last part of the mail, his eyes were crinkling in anger. So Tomoyo replied to this loser after all! And even though he didn't know what exactly the nakoudo said, it was obviously enough to encourage him!
It restated the admirer's undying love for her, and a wish to be able to talk to finally introduce himself to her and profess his love in person.
"Over my dead body," he grumbled. He was going to get to the bottom of this. He began to compose a reply to the email.
A letter telling the person that the nakoudo has a boyfriend already.
A boyfriend named Hiiragizawa Eriol.
tsuzuku