author's notes: short, yes, and a little pointless, but i couldn't help myself. this stuff fascinates me.

warnings: tomoyo loves sakura, but what else is new?

disclaimer: i can't speak japanese, so obviously i can't own the characters or the anime or the manga. that honor goes to clamp, but i'm not complaining.

[Something That Will Last]

She enters the classroom in a storm of sunshine. Almost but not quite late, breathless and rosy cheeked because the mornings are getting colder-- autumn is approaching, and it's your favorite time of year anyway. She replies to every hello enthusiastically and smiles at you like she smiles at everyone else except for that one boy.

You don't tell her how beautiful she is, or that you want to hurt her because she's hurting you.

+++

"I'm not sure what to get him," she tells you worriedly, her skirt flapping a little in the cool wind. She doesn't carry around the familiar rollerskates anymore--she finally saved up enough money to buy a bicycle just last year, and her brother teased her terribly about it because he'd done the exact same thing when he was her age--and her uniform is baby blue instead of black, but not much else has changed. She's still that girl with the naive smile, still the magician's heir, though you rarely see Kero- chan these days.

"He won't care, as long as it's from you," you say, knowing it to be true, and wishing that Li-san were all fangs and selfishness, so that you could hate him properly.

"I want to give him something that will last," and you smile and tell yourself that she's happy and that's really all that matters.

+++

"I want something that will last," you say to your mother sharply whenever she pressures you about Sakura.

"But I know how you feel about her," your mother says desperately. She plays the monster to your unassuming princess, even though you really aren't a princess at all. Your mother dreams of turning the past inside out.

"She isn't Nadeshiko," you whisper, and hide in your room with your tapes and try to make yourself not care.

+++

Sakura would never be content with you. She loves Li-san too much, and she loves the seductive future and its promise of a quaint little house and a kind husband and children, many children. You know this, and cling to it, and watch it happen. Sakura would never be content with you, and all you want is her happiness.

It's enough.

+++

She is flushed and quiet when next you see her, and you suddenly realize what she gave Li-san for his birthday. And for a moment you see red, and then you see white, and then you see that she is happy and you laugh.