Caged Songbirds
By Taste of Violets
Disclaimer: I do not own Cardcaptor Sakura. It belongs to CLAMP.
Author's Notes: This is a somewhat old CCS fic which I was rather pleased to rediscover. I must say I still like it. See what you think.
Warning: Shoujo ai.
Daidouji Tomoyo is beautiful, intelligent, kind, and talented, and I don't understand her at all.
Also, she can sing.
But maybe that should come later. What should come first is: Daidouji-san is beautiful.
Wait. That is true, but maybe that shouldn't come first. What should come first of all is: Daidouji-san is in love.
Yes, that's first. Because that's what you notice about her as soon as you see her face. Anyone can tell she's in love; she walks around with a smile on her face, her head in the clouds. She isn't silly or flighty, though – no, not Daidouji-san. It's more like...more like she's walking through a flower garden. Or maybe more like she is a flower garden. She just radiates happiness, and it's not the kind of happiness that comes from doing well on a test or from getting a nice present from a friend. It's a deeper kind of happiness, the kind of happiness where you can tell right away where it comes from.
Daidouji-san is in love.
Not with me.
I hate Daidouji-san's camera. I've never mentioned that to her, of course, and I don't think I ever will. But I can't help hating it. It's always there, always up in front of her face, a wall between her and the world.
Between her and me.
When she isn't videotaping, she still holds the camera. I wonder, does she ever watch the videos? Or is the camera just an excuse to block herself off?
And what exactly is it that she's blocking herself off from?
That isn't such a hard question. At first, I thought it was – it was a mystery to me. Daidouji-san was a mystery to me.
Until I really looked at her.
Daidouji-san is in love, but not in the same way anyone thinks she is.
---
It takes a certain kind of person to be content with unrequited love. I don't know what kind of person it is, exactly – I just know two things.
Daidouji Tomoyo-san is that kind of person.
And I am not.
And that is why it is Daidouji-san who is beautiful.
Kinomoto Sakura-san is also beautiful, but not in the same way Daidouji-san is. Kinomoto-san is beautiful in her energy, her cheerfulness, her groundless and yet undying faith that no matter what happens, everything truly will be all right. Kinomoto-san was born for the day, was born for the sunlight, was born for springtime, like the flower that is her namesake.
I know what Syaoran sees in her.
And I know what Daidouji-san sees, too.
But if Kinomoto-san is the daytime, then Daidouji-san is the night. Daidouji-san is beautiful like evening, like sparrows singing their very last songs. She is beautiful like the sunset of everything. Kinomoto-san is spring, but Daidouji-san is winter. Daidouji-san is snowflakes falling outside your window, and then stinging your skin when you walk out your door into the wind. Daidouji-san is frost – pale, delicate, a premonition of colder things to come.
And oh, no, Daidouji-san is not cold, but she is aloof – separate, different, apart. And she uses her camera to keep herself apart. But what she is trying to stay furthest away from...it is the thing she truly wants to get closest to.
Oh, Daidouji-san, how long can summer stay?
How long can you stay warm, stay smiling, stay in love, when you hide yourself away like this?
Kinomoto-san is the girl Daidouji-san loves more than anything else in the world, but she is also more than that. She is Daidouji-san's other life – perhaps her truer life. It is as if the life Daidouji-san is living is not important, is not meaningful, is not even real. The life that matters is that of Kinomoto-san. And so Daidouji-san catches every moment of it on film.
And that is all she does.
That way, she cannot intrude.
Daidouji-san sees everything, everything but this. This is what only I see.
If Daidouji-san has abandoned her own life for Kinomoto-san's, what will become of Daidouji-san's life?
This is what I see, and it is not so hard to see, really. All I had to do was look.
Daidouji-san is beautiful, but it is a winter beauty, and how long can she last before it takes her over? How long can she last before the last bit of summer fades, and the cold is all she has left?
---
Daidouji-san can sing.
This is important too. I can sing, but I can't sing the way Daidouji-san does. No one can. Daidouji-san's voice is pure like nothing in the universe is pure. As we grew older, though – as all of us grew older – I was sure her voice would change, become different, become more...human-sounding.
I was wrong. Daidouji-san's voice is still as ethereal as it always has been. There is nothing wrong about it, nothing false, nothing tainted. It is an innocent little girl's voice, and it is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.
And it frightens me.
Only angels can sing the way Daidouji-san can. Her voice makes her sound unreal, like a spirit, like some heavenly creature. No matter what she sings, there always seems to be a current underneath her voice that whispers, "Do you really think I belong on Earth? Do you really think I could ever be grounded with you? You can only borrow me, and soon I will be gone."
I can hear it. And sometimes I hear it when she isn't even singing. At night, when the birds have long stopped chirping, and the silence is growing as the stars come out...I feel like I can hear her singing somewhere far away, singing into the night.
Without her, I cannot imagine how lonely I would be.
But Daidouji-san will never be lonely. She is not like me. I am lost in a world that's always changing, feeling like I'll never quite belong. I need something that is constant, something that is forever and will never go away. I need her.
But she is not like me.
She is different in her own way, different from the rest of us. But she doesn't need anything to hold onto the way I do. She is already anchored to reality, anchored by Kinomoto Sakura-san.
But what if the anchor slips? What if Daidouji-san cannot watch Kinomoto-san anymore? Or what if, someday, that no longer makes Daidouji-san happy?
Then Daidouji-san will have nothing. And she will float away from reality, from what is true and solid; she will vanish, disappear, fade away.
In every song she sings, I hear it. I hear the whisper underneath the tune.
And I am afraid, afraid, afraid.
---
What do I really have to offer? To Daidouji-san? To anyone? Compared to her, I have nothing.
If I were a little different, I would be jealous of Daidouji-san.
No. That isn't true. If Daidouji-san were a little different, I would be jealous of her.
Because she is beautiful, yes, and because she can sing, yes. And because she is talented and kind and wonderful, and everything else. But most of all, because she is happy. Happy with what she has, and happy with what she does not have.
She is perfect, yet imperfect. The old cliché would have it that she is so imperfect that she is perfect, but that isn't true at all. Daidouji-san is so perfect, perhaps, that she is imperfect. Maybe that's it.
If things were just a little different, I would be jealous of Daidouji-san.
Instead, I am in love with her.
There is something else in the way she sings that I have never told her about – that I have never told anyone about. It's that her singing reminds me of something. Something I keep as a secret deep inside me, a secret that I never, ever let out. But it's so true, so true, that it hurts to keep it inside.
It is this: Sometimes I dream of Daidouji-san. I dream of her as a bird, as a songbird singing in a cage. The golden cage gleams in the sun, hanging from the edge of the roof of a beautiful mansion. People walk through the sunlight-filled garden past the mansion. They walk by the cage and gaze at the bird chirping behind her golden bars. They smile at her songs and watch the light glinting off of her wings. They speak sweet things to her, about her. But they do not unlock the door.
Is Kinomoto-san Daidouji-san's cage? That can't be true. Kinomoto-san makes Daidouji-san happy, and what I want is Daidouji-san's happiness.
I am trying to learn from her.
I am trying not to become her.
I am trying to keep her happy for as long as I can.
But no matter what I do, the dreams persist. The songbird that is Daidouji-san sings her beautiful melodies, trapped in her golden cage.
And in a silver cage hanging in the other side of the house, the side of the house that is dark and shadowed and does not face a garden like Daidouji-san's does, another bird is sitting. This bird is black, like a raven. This bird squawks in an imitation of the songbird in the golden cage, trying to be beautiful. Trying and trying and failing. Until she stops and listens.
And as the raven-bird is silent, the sweet song of the bird in the gilded cage sweeps over her. And the raven is transformed.
The raven becomes a songbird as beautiful as the one in the golden cage – only neither of the songbirds are caged anymore. They are taking flight, beating their wings in unison as they fly toward each other, fly up and up into the sky. Their songs are equally beautiful, winding around and intertwining each other in the most lovely harmonies.
Daidouji-san's singing always reminds me of that dream...the dream with the two songbirds spiraling up and up through the golden heavens, singing a long chain of honeyed melody that seems like it will go on forever.
Maybe someday it will.
Maybe someday I won't have to wake up.
Maybe someday that's the way things really will be. Daidouji-san – beautiful, kind, talented, and eternally happy – and me. Me.
Understanding her.
Flying free with her.
Making her happy.
And loving and being loved by her.
Some fine summer day, Daidouji-san, it just might happen. You and me...together.
Then we won't have cages anymore.