Fountain of Age
Summary: AU. Syaoran and Eriol are on the trail of the Fountain of Youth... a trail that would lead them inevitably to Tomoeda... and Sakura...
Disclaimer: I don't own Card Captor Sakura. None of it: manga, anime, little plushie Keros; I own nothing.
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Chapter 5: In Preparation...
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"You have a lot of guts, did you know that?!" yelled Syaoran when they'd returned home that day.
Eriol was practically skipping after inviting Sakura to dinner. Syaoran, meanwhile, was still stinging from the fact that Eriol had managed to string Tomoyo and himself along in the process. But all Eriol could say was, "Yes, yes. I have lots of guts." He giggled like a schoolgirl.
This just worsened Syaoran's mood. He started to stomp off to his room.
"You really didn't notice?" Eriol asked him quietly.
"Notice what?!" Syaoran yelled.
But the older boy would do nothing but shake his head. "Wait and see then."
"Fine."
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As the days rolled forward and became Saturday, Kinomoto Sakura seemed to warm up to the date idea.
"She was a bit afraid you see," Tomoyo explained to the boys while their class was making ice cream. Sakura was, at the moment, helping Mr. Terrada pass cones out to the class. "Her brother's strict about who she can date, especially while their dad's gone."
"So, her brother let her go?" Syaoran asked.
"Not a chance," said Tomoyo with a giggle. "He's just going to be too busy working to notice that she's gone. He's in college now and he's got tons of homework."
"But-"
"Tomoyo!" the girl in question shouted. "What flavor do you want?"
"Vanilla's fine!" Tomoyo hollered back and Sakura nodded before retrieving the ice cream.
"If her brother doesn't want her to go on the date," Syaoran reasoned, "then she shouldn't. I'm sure Eriol doesn't want her to get in trouble."
"Mmm," said Eriol, slumped all over his desk.
"Mmm?!" Syaoran repeated, blowing up. "What does 'mmm' mean? You want her to get in trouble?!"
"Here you go Tomoyo." Sakura bounced towards them, with an ice cream cone for Tomoyo. She turned to the boys, her wide green eyes filled with curiosity. "What's this about me in trouble?" she asked.
Syaoran instantly wished he hadn't been so loud. "N-nothing..."
"Thanks for the ice cream, Sakura," said Tomoyo. "It's good!"
"Isn't it?" Sakura smiled eagerly. She turned back to Syaoran and Eriol. "What would you boys like?"
"Chocolate," chose Eriol, his jaw pushing him off the desk.
"Strawberry, I guess," answered Syaoran. He glared at his cousin who wouldn't look at him.
"Chocolate and strawberry ice cream it is!" Sakura sang, and she went back to Mr. Terrada, his scooper and the ice cream buckets.
When she had exited hearing range, Eriol sighed. "She's so sweet."
Syaoran rolled his eyes.
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He had forgotten to do it at the London house. He had thought, for a moment, that it was a lost opportunity, but at the sight of Eriol's house, hope swelled in him. Eriol's Tomoeda house was an exact duplicate of his London house except for a big black fence, and a thriving garden out back. Certainly, the library painting was here?
When Syaoran had entered the house, he immediately looked into the kitchen for the ruined painting. It was present and accounted for. He was sure they hadn't taken any paintings to the airport back in London, so this had to be a copy. It was almost as if the house had flown to Tomoeda with them, or that London had simply melted to become this small Japanese town.
"Told you it was like the London house," Eriol had said, his trademark grin flashing.
So now, he could look at the portrait in the library's second room. Syaoran had been busy all week, working on his homework, strolling around Tomoeda, trying to figure out what to do next. He was no closer to finding the Fountain of Youth than he had been in England.
In any case, he didn't want to look at the painting while Eriol was in there, and he had been in there a lot, sitting in that hard backed chair, staring into the fire (which he lit, despite everything), never moving. Syaoran chalked it up as another one of Eriol's many eccentricities which included his bulbless house (yes, even the Tomoeda house), the painting in the kitchen, and the alphabetized-by-title library.
Another eccentricity was the fact that the second room had a conventional door, just like the first room. You didn't have to pull on Move the Bookcase every single time you wanted to enter the second room; you just had to open the door farther down the hallway. Why would Eriol build two doors? Building the bookcases to swing like that was pretty cool, but unnecessary.
It was nearly Saturday evening when Syaoran entered the library's second room. Light the shade of pure honey glided through the window. Syaoran wasted no time in approaching the painting; he and Eriol were going to fetch the girls in a few minutes.
And so there she was, hanging above the fireplace. Her expressive eyes weren't pinned on him, as always. She only had eyes for that bookshelf. Syaoran wondered if there was another copy of Youth there; Eriol was reading the London one. He went to check and found the space empty. So, either there had never been a book there in the first place, or someone had taken that copy too. Syaoran hoped Eriol would return the book to him; he felt that it held some important clues.
He plopped himself into Eriol's chair and looked up to gaze on the woman's portrait. He wondered if she was real, or a vision of the painter. What made her smile like that? Did Eriol sit in his chair, just like this, and dream about her?
Who painted this wonderful vision of a woman?
Painters, he knew from his mother's own art collection, liked to sign their names in the bottom right hand corner. Did the painter do that? He searched the library for a stool so that he could examine the painting more closely. There was nothing but the chair he was sitting in. Would it be enough?
He dragged the chair closer to the fireplace and stood up on its soft seat. He was just the right height, and he blearily tried to figure out what was in the corner. There was a signature there, all right, penciled in English.
Clow Reed.
"Syaoran!" Nakuru's voice called. "We're leaving!"
"Just a minute!" he called back, and went back to reading the painter's name. Clow Reed. It wasn't familiar at all, but he wondered whether the kitchen painting was done by the same person. It seemed assured, thanks to those distinctive eyes, but he needed to be positive.
"Syaoran!"
"Coming!" He bounced off the chair, and set it back in its original spot. He ran out of the door, checking to be sure he looked presentable. Syaoran marched down the hallway.
"There you are, come on," said Nakuru, standing at the door.
"I need to check something," he told her, and before she could say anything more, he sharply turned into the kitchen. Lucky for him this painting was set lower and there was no need for a stool to check the bottom right hand corner.
Clow Reed.
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Author's Notes: Thank you ChibiYuffie1 and Midi Tenshi for your continued support. CONTINUED SUPPORT! Wow, thank you so much!