Hi! I know I promised to update by the first week of May but things all piled up and I needed to proofread the second part a number of times till I'm half-heartedly satisfied. Gomen!
And since this is the last part of Owari I wish to thank those who reviewed:
Crystal-shian: I don't like Kaho and Eriol being together too ET rulez! You're right. I thought so too. Majority of the ET fics in the net always put Kaho in the side (not that I mind) but then again, I thought it would be better if I base my story to the real pairing and then divert it to ET. Tomoyo herself noted in the manga how kind Eriol's eyes are when he looks at Kaho. Thank you so much!
Arika-Chan: You think so? Thank you!
RequiemElise: Thank you so much! Hope you're brain's till intact – here's the update!
Umi: Thank you!
Tomoyo129: Thanks a lot. All your questions will be answered in this part. Hope you like it!
Wind and Flame: My first reviewer! Thank you!
Music when soft voices die
Vibrates in the memory
Odours when sweet violets sicken
Live within the sense they quicken
Rose leaves when the rose is dead
And heaped for the beloved's bed
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on…
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822
To-
Kaho Mizuki crossed the streets of Tomoeda with an expressionless look on her face, her hands wrapped around two bouquets of roses like as if it's the most precious thing in the world.
The wind was playing with her hair and she had to stop in a corner and set down the roses in the concrete pavement to secure her burgundy stresses with her handkerchief.
With her hair done she bent down to retrieve the roses and walked her way to the hill across Penguin Park.
She then felt something cold touch her cheek and she paused too look at the sky.
"Yuki…" she said to herself watching the white flakes land on her dress and roses.
She shivered.
Taking a deep breath she continued her walk and stopped in front of a barren cherry tree and sat down on bended knee in front of two granite sepulchers.
Wordlessly, she placed the roses in the crypts and shed her tears under the moonlight…
"Gomen nasai… hontoni... gomen nasai…" she choked in her tears.
Two hours later the Li's received a phone call stating Mizuki Kaho's death.
She was found in front of Hiirigizawa Eriol and Daidouji Tomoyo's graves, her blood staining the snow covered ground.
A passer-by found her with a knife and a blood stained journal partially covered with crimson rose petals blown by the wind.
Owari
By: Akizuki Sai
Part II: Regrets
Date: January 1, 2012
Time: 9:00 am
I tried reading the future through the moon shrine earlier and saw visions that deeply worry me.
My visions aren't that clear but I'm pretty certain that something terrible is going to happen in the year ahead.
Rain…Rope… and Blood…
I pray to the heavens that nothing bad will happen to everyone close to me. It will break my heart if there is.
Eriol is still in Hong Kong by the way. He and his guardians will stay there for another week and are planning to visit Tomoeda with Daidouji-san for a couple of days. He phoned in earlier for their sudden change of plans.
We were supposed to celebrate New Year's Eve together but apparently they enjoy the people from Hong Kong's company than mine.
My friend and colleague Tamara keeps on teasing me earlier that Eriol probably found a younger, prettier, sexier, smarter and nicer woman in Hong Kong to celebrate New Year's Eve with and little old me who is left here in England will live as a sour grape who will slowly turn into a prune for the rest of my life.
Hilarious.
Date: January 10, 2012
Time: 10:13 pm
Today's activities were exhausting.
Eriol arrived this afternoon and I cleaned the whole house, changed the drapes, put in plenty of flowers and dressed up extra nicely. He doesn't seem to notice anything at all though as he went straight to bed upon his arrival.
He must be really tired.
Right now, I'm staring at his sleeping figure in the bed we shared… in the room we shared.
I miss him. He seems so near, the same time far away from me.
He looks so peaceful in his sleep. Just like a child. Something seems different about him tonight though.
I don't know what but there's something about him I can't put my finger on.
He's different. He's changed.
My Eriol's changed.
Date: January 17, 2012
Time: 9:13 pm
Things between me and Eriol are now headed from bad to worse.
I hate to admit this but Eriol and I are drifting apart – or at least he is from me.
We rarely talk.
During breakfast he would be on the phone talking to Daidouji-san about music, work or preparations for Sakura-chan's wedding or if not he would be too busy in his office or the piano to even notice me saying goodbye on my way to work.
He no longer calls me during my vacant periods in the university or send me notes or flowers like he usually does either.
When I get home he'd either be cooped in his office or fast asleep in the sofa.
It's like as if I don't exist.
This morning he told me that Daidouji-san is coming to London in two days and will stay in the house for a week.
It was not a suggestion. It was a statement. The Eriol I know would always consult me when it comes to making decisions. Not that I don't want Daidouji-san to stay in the house but somehow I don't know where I stand in Eriol's life anymore.
Date: January 23, 2012
Time: 8:45 pm
I thought I'd go home early from the university today and have tea with Eriol and Daidouji-san to catch up with old times. Tea went out well with me and Daidouji-san indulging over Eriol's lavender tea and oatmeal cookies.
Daidouji-san's grown to be a beautiful woman full of heart and wit over the 14 years we haven't seen each other.
She's visiting London for a fashion show she's holding and is very excited about it. Three years of modeling and she finally earned enough capital to start a fashion firm of her own.
She will be taking over her mother's post in their company on her 25th birthday.
She's really come a long way.
Eriol offered to play the piano in the show – his first appearance after years of absence as an acclaimed pianist.
Daidouji-san was ecstatic.
I envy her.
Eriol never offered to play for anybody even for me.
Kaho,
I'm sorry but things between us aren't the same anymore. You changed and so did I.
We both changed and drifted apart.
We both need to go on with our lives – alone.
Take care of yourself.
Eriol
Date: July 23, 2013
Time: 9:10 pm
It's been a year and five months since Eriol left.
And it's been a year and five months since my heart is in weeping.
He'll be back. I know he'll be back.
Till then I'll wait.
Date: August 13, 2013
Time: 10:17 am
I honestly don't know what I'm doing right now.
One minute I was overhearing my colleagues whispering about Eriol and Daidouji-san being a couple and now I'm in a plane headed to Tomoeda.
I need to know for myself.
This just can't be. This just can't be…
Date: August 29, 2013
Time: 11:45 pm
I'm a fool. Not to mention, a coward.
There I was trying to put a brave face when I saw Eriol and Daidouji-san together, inwardly telling myself to walk right up to him and slap him hard on the face and tell him that I don't give a damn about him, that in the end he'll realize his lost and come back to me in bended knee and all.
I really was about to face him but when I saw him laugh and smile by something Daidouji-san said something stopped me from doing so.
I never saw Eriol's eyes light up like that. He looked so…so… happy.
I never saw him like that even with me.
Does that mean he loves her?
I love him, he loved me and now he loves her and she loves him back. But what about me?
I love him more than life itself, isn't that enough for him? What does he see in Daidouji-san that he doesn't see in me?
Date: September 3, 2013
Time: 3:58 am
It all happened so fast.
I can't believe it.
I don't believe it.
I thought nothing could be more painful than the idea of not having Eriol in my life, but why am I in so much pain now?
My arm hurts and so is my heart.
The doctor said my arm will be okay in a month or two but I doubt if my heart will be better by then as well.
Maybe it won't be better, not then, not now and not ever.
She died because of me and I'll forever be guilty of her death.
I was furious. All my emotions just exploded then. I was yelling at her and Eriol at the top of my lungs. I didn't care if it was raining so hard and that it was the middle of the night, for me it was a sign of the heaven's sympathy to me. For my lost.
She tried pacifying me but I was too furious, too hurt and too stupid to listen to her.
Instead I cursed her and Eriol, yelling my hate for them, that they'll never be happy. I was too caught up with showing them how hurt I am to notice the speeding car.
The next thing I knew I was pushed to the side. I felt my arm hit the pavement and I heard Eriol scream.
The rain blinded my eyes but it didn't prevent me from seeing Eriol's heart breaking as he cradled Tomoyo's body dearly.
Kami-sama, what have I done?
I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. For a few weeks I was alive while she loved me…
Humphrey Bogart 1899-1957
Said as Dixon Steele
In a Lonely Place, Andrew Salt
Date: December 13, 2013
Time: 7:35 pm
She's dead.
And now he's dead.
I found him in his room when I brought him dinner.
I was too late.
He could not take her lost. I thought I could replace her but he already closed the doors of his heart.
He hates me. I can't blame him, he has every reason to do so.
I ruined everything for him, all because of my selfishness.
I was too blind to see that he and Daidouji-san deserve each other.
Today was his interment. He's resting right beside the woman he loved the most.
Right now I'm hurting so much. The feeling is like having a big hole in my heart that makes it hard to breathe.
Everywhere I look I see them smile and laugh at each other just before I confronted them. I can't take my thoughts of them, they just keep coming.
I can't stop crying either. Strangely, the tears keep flowing without my assent.
Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, "Did you bring joy?" The second was, "Did you find joy?"
--Leo Buscaglia
Sakura wiped the corner of her eyes with the back of her hand and closed the leather bound journal.
Everything written in it was painful, for her teacher who loved and lost, for Eriol and Tomoyo who loved and died and for her and everyone else who loved the three of them but weren't able to do anything to protect them.
Regrets always come in the end after all, not in the beginning, not in the middle, always in the end.
It's over. The pages were turned and they cannot go back.
"Sakura," Syaoran said disrupting her thoughts, worry painted in his features. They just arrived from the morgue and while he made some tea for them Sakura started to skim the journal that was last found with their late teacher.
"Syao-kun, gomen… I…" Sakura said wiping the freshly formed tears in her eyes yet again.
"Are you okay?" the young Li clan leader asked his wife.
"Yeah… it's just that, it's just that… I feel terrible about what happened to them…" Sakura said stifling her sob. Syaoran held her hand and gave it a light squeeze.
"It's okay…" Syaoran said giving his wife a one arm hug. Sakura rested her head in his shoulders and started crying.
"They were all blinded by love," Syaoran said in a bare whisper.
Sakura looked at him.
"Mizuki-sensei was too blind to see Eriol and Tomoyo's love for each other while Eriol and Tomoyo were too blind to realize that Mizuki-sensei was hurting… they all just did what their hearts dictated them to do, what they think would make them happy…"Syaoran explained looking at Sakura's eyes then at their daughter Nadeshiko who was playing with her toy bunnies in her play pen.
"…but happiness comes at a price… not everyone gets to have it – at least for a moment. There will always come a point where a person can feel bliss in his/her life. It can be yesterday, the other day, today, tomorrow… anytime, just not all the time," Syaoran continued.
"Why can't people be happy all the time? Wouldn't that be better?" Sakura asked like a child.
"No, it wouldn't," Syaoran said tucking a stray strand of Sakura's hair behind her ear." It would just spoil the happiness. It will be taken for granted… because it's always there…"
"What should we do then?" Sakura asked snuggling closer to Syaoran.
"Live," Syaoran answered simply.
Sakura's eyes watered.
She understood and the tears continued to fall.
Again, I corrected some typographical and grammatical errors. I hope you guys don't mind.
I needed to adjust the year on the previous chapter due to Nadeshiko's age as Sakura can't possibly give birth to a year old baby at once. Also, taking note of Wind and Flame's comment about the Swiss knife, I changed it into a knife… smiles…I made some of the entries short as I think depressed people don't write too long and go straight to the point when they're hurt. I originally intended to keep Kaho alive but my sister insists that she dies – she hates her that much.
Oh well.
This story has a number of symbols and parallelisms. I don't know if anyone noticed it. Anyway, the side story to this fic, The Firefly is already out.This time it's purely ET and is about how Eriol and Tomoyo met in Sakura's engagement party and how the rest fall into place.
Please do review ne?
Till next time !
Sai-chan