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 9: In The Book...
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Syaoran felt that he could trust Sakura about his quest for the Fountain of Youth. He really didn't know what direction to go in anymore; should he run around and check every fountain in the city? Was there another book, somewhere? Maybe, if he enlisted Sakura's help, with two brains, they could figure something out.
As if on cue, Eriol stopped him before they left the house some random morning. He held the book Youth out to Syaoran.
"Here," said Eriol. "Thought you might want it back."
"Huh?" he responded, his eyes blurring on the book's off white cover. "Uh, yes. Thank you." Syaoran stared at it, as if seeing it for the first time. Youth, by Kaho Mizuki. He'd have to force feed himself the book later; in case it had any clues.
The school day passed without incident. Syaoran squeezed time between lectures to peek into the book. If Syaoran had the eye for it, he might've noted the gorgeous prose, but he found himself focus more on the horrifying plot. It was formula: girl meets boy. Girl hates boy and boy hates girl. Fate thrusts them together. Girl and boy fall in love with each other. Duh. Typical. Stupid. The chapter involving the fountain was a very long kissing scene, in which the two protagonists declared their undying love to each other. Never mind that they were only thirteen.
Meanwhile, Syaoran couldn't help notice that his classmates were sniggering.
"You are aware that's a girl book, right?" said Sakura, with a glance and a fond smile at the cover as they packed up before the bell signaled the end of school.
Less insulted that some might expect (including himself), Syaoran asked, "So, you've read this then?"
"Tomoyo loaned it to me," Sakura said brightly. "Love that fountain scene."
The bell rang, and the students sauntered out.
Tomoyo caught sight of the book's cover too. "Good book," she said. Eriol grinned at her side.
"Where are you guys going?" asked Syaoran.
"Art club," Tomoyo replied.
"We're studying people's faces this week," explained Eriol. "Then next week, we're doing this project: 'Imagine yourself in twenty years.'"
"I didn't know you were an artist, Eriol," said Sakura.
"I am," Eriol said, proudly. "I love art. I have an art collection at home. You should come by and see it one day."
Sakura laughed weakly. "My brother would never let me..."
"You're an artist too, Tomoyo?" Syaoran asked the black haired girl.
She responded by flashing him with her camera. "A bit," Tomoyo said, as Polaroid printed and Syaoran cleaned the stars out of his eyes. She shook it in his face. "I'm more of a photographer. I'm supplying the art club with pictures."
Sakura yelped. "NO! You're not using any pictures of ME, are you?"
Eriol laughed, and Tomoyo wouldn't stop grinning. She chose not to answer Sakura's question, fanning herself with the picture. She asked, "What about you? Where are you going?"
"Public library, as always," said Syaoran. "Study for math, you know."
"Seeing as my brother would skin Syaoran if he came within eight feet of the house," said Sakura bitterly. "Even if I'd be failing math without him."
"Yes," said Tomoyo, and her eyes slanted off into a corner. "They must get really cozy, these study sessions at the library..."
"They must get really cozy," mocked Sakura, "these art club meetings. Not exactly a lot of art club members..."
"Oh! You bet!" And to everyone's surprise (maybe even Eriol's) she looped her arm through his, and dragged him off to the art room. "'Bye Sakura!"
Sakura could do nothing but ogle her best friend. "You don't think-" she said to Syaoran, "they couldn't be... could they?"
The boy laughed. He remembered Eriol in the restaurant. "Come on."
They headed to the library under an overcast sky, only to find it closed. A heavy drop of water struck Sakura's nose.
"Now what?" asked Syaoran as Sakura blinked, surprised, then scrubbed the drop off.
"Well, your house is too far," she said, ticking off the possibilities on her hand. "My house is close enough, but Touya's probably back, and he'd hack you to pieces even before you set foot on our property."
"What other options do we have left then?" Syaoran asked, irritably. A few drops fell into his hair, and he was starting to get sick of Sakura's brother, even though he hadn't met him yet. I could probably take him, he thought.
Sakura looked around at the library's doorway. She tilted her head upward. "We can just hang out here," she said. "The rain will end in thirty minutes. We'll be done by then."
"Uncontrollable magic again?" said Syaoran, as they sat themselves down, next to the door.
"I guess," said Sakura. She opened her math notebook, but instead of starting immediately on her work, she leaned back and rested her eyes. "I seem to get the impression that you also want to tell me something."
Tell her what? What was Sakura expecting? He looked down at the book in his hand, and remembered what he'd been thinking of that morning. He flipped to the page with the fountain. There, he found the note tucked back inside, upside down again. He turned it to a readable angle, and said "Try to find me in Tomoeda" in his mind.
The girl was now looking at him expectantly, her green eyes pinned on his amber ones. He took a deep breath. Certainly, he had thought of telling Sakura about his quest for the Fountain of Youth, but it wouldn't stop it from sounding strange.
"I'm-" he said lamely, "I'm looking for the Fountain of Youth."
There was a pause, as if Sakura was expecting more. When nothing came, she furrowed her brow in thought. "Fountain of Youth? As in Ponce de Leon, Florida, and stuff?"
"Yeah," said Syaoran, somewhat surprised. It wasn't really traditional Japanese fare, was it? "How would you know about that?"
"I just remembered," said Sakura, "My dad was talking about that before he left."
"Does your dad know anything else about the Fountain of Youth?" Syaoran asked eagerly. Maybe his hypothesis was right; Sakura could help him.
"Just the basic stuff," she said. "Just Ponce de Leon."
"Oh," said Syaoran, hopes plummeting. He leaned back against the stone wall too, and gazed out at the rain. "We should start on our math homework if we're going to finish it in thirty minutes."
Sakura produced a pencil from her bag, and began to jot something down in the notebook. "Aren't you in the least bit interested in why my dad would talk to me about the Fountain of Youth?"
Now that you thought about it, the Fountain of Youth didn't exactly pop up in everyday conversation.
"Why?" asked Syaoran.
"I got around to asking my brother why my dad's in England," said Sakura, erasing a calculation violently. "My father is in England to find the Fountain of Youth's opposite: The Fountain of Age."
"The Fountain of Age?"
"Yeah," said Sakura with a nod. "I suppose it makes you older instead of younger."
Well, he was looking for the Fountain of Youth, not the Fountain of Age. That was useless information. Syaoran sighed at the futility of his search, and returned to Youth. He gazed at the picture of the fountain, briefly. He turned to check how Sakura was doing, when his eyes focused on the white areas of the picture.
"No way," said Syaoran, breathlessly. He took the note, read it, and turned it upside down. He stuck it where he had first found it, then flipped the book over so he could read the note properly again.
"What is it?" Sakura asked, as she absentmindedly rubbed a messy hole into her assignment. She glanced over the black and white picture. "Nice fountain."
So that was it. Syaoran upended the book repeatedly, but there was no mistaking it: the white areas of the picture formed a fountain; an exact copy of the black one he'd first seen.
He reexamined the black fountain, and its caption. Fuente de Ponce de Leon... if the black fountain was Ponce de Leon's fountain, which could be nothing else but the Fountain of Youth, what was the white fountain? The opposite of the Fountain of Youth... the Fountain of Age... an upside down note... "Try to find me in Tomoeda..."
With a sickening realization, Syaoran groaned. "I've been on the trail of the wrong thing," he nearly cried. "It's not the Fountain of Youth that's in Tomoeda, it's the Fountain of Age."
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Author's Notes: I must admit that this would be far more effective if I had visuals, but I don't. Sorry.
Thank you again to fae and ChibiYuffie1. I always love hearing from you guys.
And h2omelonnqa, who I thanked for simply reading. I thank any other readers I have out there, except that I have no idea if I have any others. It's like waving at one of those double sided mirrors: you have no idea who's on the other side watching you because all you can see is yourself (and all the people who show themselves). In any case, I hope everyone is enjoying reading this.