Disclaimer: Oi! S'more reviews sir? If I owned CCS, I wouldn't need to beg for reviews! I don't own CCS…CLAMP does…
Previous Chapter:
Eriol closed his eyes, and thought of Tomoyo for what could be his last time. She had infinite kindness, warmth, and innocence...the scent of lavenders that followed her everywhere, and those beautiful amethyst eyes. Eriol wish that her image would burn into his mind, because it was the one thing he wanted to remember before he died, and Eriol wanted to have her in his arms again...
"Three..."
Chapter 2: Getting Acquainted
Click was the only sound that could be heard in the library of the Hiirigizawa Manor in England.
Eriol opened his eyes slowly, completely expecting to be surrounded by flames and blistering heat. Yes, he anticipated to be stuck in…well, Heaven wouldn't have been as big of a possibility. He could feel the warmth, but to his disappointment, it was from the fireplace in the room.
Eriol's eyes went wide. He was alive. And fate was supposedly the only reason why.
"Eriol, you do know what you have to do now, don't you?" He was snapped out of his thoughts when Syaoran broke the silence.
He nodded, "Syaoran, pack your things. We're taking the earliest flight to Japan."
Tomeoda Airport
"Hurry Tomoyo! We're going to be late to pick-up Syaoran at the airport!!" Shouted an auburn-haired young woman to her best friend.
"I don't see what the rush is, we have 10 or 20 minutes left till his plane arrives." Replied Tomoyo Daidouji to her frantic companion. They had come to pick Syaoran up at the airport after his long visit to England. Something about family business...
"I don't see why Tomoyo and I had to come along too." Complained her fiancé. Junshi
Sakura wasn't really worried about her husband's well being at the time, but his companion. She was eager to see how he was doing, but concerned about how Eriol would feel after seeing Tomoyo and Junshi together, even more so when he found out they were actually engaged. The card mistress was worried about her friend's condition, she had always known that he liked Tomoyo since grade school, but didn't have enough guts to tell her. In short, things weren't going to turn out well. Someone was going to get hurt.
"Hiirigizawa! Japan hasn't changed that much to you, has it?" Syaoran called to the man behind him. Eriol was practically in awe at the sight before him, but it wasn't Japan. A raven-haired girl could be seen next to two very enthusiastic, brown-haired women who were frantically waving at them.
'No sign of anyone else. Maybe the wedding was called off.''
The expression on Eriol's face was brightening, until a tall, dark-haired young man walked behind Tomoyo, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her on the cheek. Right then and there, in front of him, and plainly in view. And the worst part was—to him anyway—that she seemed to enjoy it.
Eriol stopped, and immediately turned around to purchase a one-way ticket BACK to England.
"Where do you think you're going?" Eriol turned his head to look behind him. Syaoran was shooting him an if-you-don't-go-through-with-this-you'll-regret-it look.
"I left my bag in one of the compartments above my seat. So if you'll excuse me..." Eriol simply said, not caring about the way that his descendant was looking at him. If fact, he didn't care about anything at the moment. He wanted the ground to swallow him up and put him out of his misery. He wanted a mild heart attack, a meteor plowing him into the ground, anything that would kill him. He wanted to die right on the spot. He was about to retreat until he heard Nakuru, his guardian, stop him.
"Master, turn around. Don't run away. You're going to see her eventually. It is the reason why you came back, ne?"
He was going to ignore Nakuru's instructions when her voice interrupted his actions.
"Whose your friend Syaoran?"
'I still have a chance of going back unnoticed…' Eriol kept his head bowed down.
"Just someone that I have known for a while." Syaoran answered.
Eriol wanted to run away, something he did only once. When he first left Japan, he ran away from her. He shut his eyes tightly and tried to sprint past everyone in the direction of the booth. But he ran into something—actually—someone. Eriol knew exactly who it was. He attempted to spin around and avoid colliding into her, but the rigid figure adjacent to the young women stopped him from doing so. Both Eriol and Tomoyo stumbled backward from the impact and fell to the floor. Eriol did his best to hide his face and hoped the she wouldn't recognize him when he was squinting his eyes. Using his palms to look for his glasses, he patted the floor until he felt somebody hand him his spectacles. Eriol accepted his spectacles and put them on, clearing his vision. A pair of soft, amethyst-eyes were looking at him intently...
He had to remind himself to breathe after seeing her.
Her waist-length, raven hair cascaded down her shoulders and her creamy complexion was the same. Tomoyo glowed with a charming smile and joyful eyes, wearing a sleeveless turtleneck and a stylish black skirt. She stood out from the rest of the crowd in the bustling airport terminal. Her right hand was out-stretched to him, and the sun reflected off of a ring on her forefinger.
Eriol's heart sank. Now he wished that he hadn't been so lucky back in England. That's it. It was just luck. He was just very fortunate that a bullet didn't kill him.
'Just keep believing that. That's right, I was just really lucky...'
"Gomen nasai," Eriol said softly, "I wasn't watching were I was going..."
"It's quite alright, but you look very familiar...have we met before?"
"I-I just have one of those faces you know..." Eriol tried his best to keep his voice from cracking. He quickly walked off before Syaoran or Sakura could force him to back. But more importantly, so Tomoyo couldn't get a better look at him.
They all watched him walk off without saying anything else, letting out sighs. Nakuru then spoke up.
"Tomoyo, it's Eriol."
"WHAT? Why didn't he say anything!?" She felt guilty for not realizing earlier.
Then, Sakura stepped in, "Don't you know! It was quite obvious when we were in grade school! He always was shy! Besides, he came to tell you that he l--"
"—Longs to see us again!" Syaoran interrupted his honey-haired wife. Sometimes she didn't know which things the person who means to say it would best. People couldn't exactly handle sudden love confessions, especially when they were getting married to someone else.
"Shouldn't we go get him then? We have over a decade's worth of catching up to do!" Tomoyo said. She was briefly suspicious of the reason why Syaoran abruptly interrupted Sakura, but she just brushed it off as their usual strange behavior.
"C'mon! He might have gotten a car already!" She continued as she started jogging toward the entrance of the airport.
Eriol was waiting impatiently in line to get a car, constantly looking over his shoulder. Normally, he wasn't like this, but with his reason to come back to Japan, he intended on getting as far away from the group right now as possible.
"Hiirgizawa-san! What are you doing?" Eriol heard a voice call out to him. It was angry.
"What does it look like? I'm buying a ticket." He answered, forgetting an important fact about Tomoyo when she was irate...which rarely happened now that he thought about it…
"I beg to differ," she said as she pulled him out of line.
Now he remembered, Tomoyo became pushy when she was mad.
"Let's go to the ICE CREAM PARLOR!" Nakuru interrupted before the young women could severely injure somebody, meaning Eriol.
Eriol sweat dropped. The mood of the group jumped from angry, to sugar-high happiness.
"Nakuru, don't give Spinel any--" but his words came too late. The moon guardian was already forcing down a large ice cream cone down the small cat's throat. Not a second later, the entire group was chasing a speeding ball of black fur around the room repeatedly apologizing while knocking over tables, chairs, and Eriol and Tomoyo's ice creams. Everyone had gone to get ice cream by demand of Nakuru, with the exclusion of Junshi, who had the run an errand at a job. After safely locking away Spinel in her purse, Tomoyo excused herself to get another ice cream.
"Sure." everyone replied, looking towards their new arrival. Eriol winced as he could feel Sakura kick his shin under the table.
"I'd better go too..." the blue-eyed boy started hurriedly toward the line to avoid any more leg injuries from Sakura and glares from the rest of the company.
But what he didn't notice was that Nakuru was outside, handing out dollar bills. Then a lot of people came in. They all went to the line. Everyone but Eriol's moon guardian didn't know what was going to happen next...
"Oof! What was that?!" apparently, the blue-haired magician bumped into Tomoyo when they were about to order. "Hey! Who's pushing back there?" As soon as he turned his back, he bumped into her again, but this time, it was fiercer than the one before. He put his arms on the counter to try and stop the pushing, but with Tomoyo in front of him, they had to be around her. He could feel warmth creep up his cheeks. 'Damn! I feel like a Syaoran-act-alike!' The crowd behind Eriol and Tomoyo kept pushing, until his hands slipped because of sweat from the effort from trying to keep his distance, or it could've been because of the few inches between him and her. This caused Eriol to lose balance and fall on top of Tomoyo. Unfortunately, she just had turned around to look at him just before.
'Kuso...' was his reaction to the very uncomfortable position he was in.
"Mmmfffmmmfff..." was the first thing that Eriol heard. It was Tomoyo, whose head was cradled protectively in his chest and covered with his forearms. His face burned, and he resembled a red-hot brand.
Apparently, before they both hit the ground, Eriol had instinctively put Tomoyo's head against his chest and cushioned her fall with his arms, which right now, hurt a lot. Lifting himself from his dominant position so she could get up, Eriol quickly made a gap of about 2 feet between him and the amethyst eyed-young woman. He felt like a Christmas light, flashing red for the past 5 minutes.
"Err...are you ok Tomoyo-san?"
"Yes, thanks to you. But, what about your arms? They must have gotten bruised." She too was a bit pink in the face, but stepped forward to get a better look at his arms anyway. Eriol maintained the two-foot gap as she advanced.
"Th-they're fine…" He swallowed loudly and hugged his arms around himself protectively, and then started to look around the room, every person in line behind them had left the ice cream parlor, and then his attention diverted when he heard Nakuru's laughter and something else she said between giggles...what was that? Eriol strained to hear what she was saying...
"Ka...ka..." Eriol went bright red when he figured out what it was.
"KAWAII???" at this point, Nakuru already got a head start toward the door as the blue-eyed boy chased her into the street.
Tomoyo giggled as she watched her childhood friend run out the door shouting threats at his guardian. He definitely changed, but what she didn't know, was that something never did...
TBCHow was it? Better? Worse? Same? Tell me!!! The mood sort of shifts a lot; the first chapter wasn't exactly something that enlightened one's mood. Gomen for the slight OOCness. This is better, ne? If you don't review, I'm holding the next chapter as a hostage. In other words, REVIEW OR ELSE WAIT LONGER FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER!!!! Thank you for reading.