Title: Say It With Flowers
by molten-amber
Disclaimer: Cardcaptor Sakura is the property of CLAMP. All of the floral information on traditional meanings of flowers I got from various webpages, including about(dot)com, usatoday(dot)com and wikipedia(dot)org.
This fic has alternate pairings than canon. That was the pointof the writing exercise. If you don't like E&S and SyaoMei, don't read it.
It was seven-thirty when she crept into Naples, hating her weakness. She didn't have to come just because some guy bought her flowers. She didn't have to have a guy in her life. And Kinomoto Sakura didn't do pity dates.
"Why am I here again?" she mumbled to herself. She wandered through the restaurant and nothing stuck out at her. There weren't beautiful flowers decorating a specific table, nor did a handsome stranger grab her hand as she passed. He was scared, he had left, or he'd never shown.
She sighed exaggeratedly to convince herself that it didn't matter, and sat down in a booth by herself. She fished the gift card out of her purse and studied the handwriting. There wasn't much she could learn from the few penstrokes he had left.
When the waitress came she was surprised to see such a beautiful young lady sitting alone, but she knew better than to comment, especially when the girl ordered a glass of wine without looking up from the table. When she brought the drink back the girl looked up at her and thanked her with a dead voice.
The waitress took her food order and then walked away, making a note to keep an eye on the girl. This was a weird place to come to drink, but you never know these days.
Sakura had been sitting by herself feeling stupid for about half an hour when the lump in her throat arose. I'm going to cry in public, she thought. The wine has made me weepy. Or could it perhaps be that I lost the love of my life and some flowery bastard is screwing with me?
She knocked her head against the booth once, and then rested her head there on the smooth plastic. It was cool and somewhat comforting. She hoped that no one she knew was here. She hoped that they didn't kick her out when she started crying. She sniffled and then she heard the voices rising in volume from two booths down.
"I can't do this anymore! I can't play these games, Hiiragizawa Eriol! Either you put off that know-everything act and that self-satisfied smirk, or I am out of here!"
"I believe that you were going to leave in any case as soon as I admitted that I am not in fact heir to a large fortune like the British men in the trashy romance novels you always read. I am just a poor musician with no sense of proper romance."
"Oh, I hate you!" the girl screamed. She came past Sakura's booth, her long angry stride showing off her shapely legs, her long dark hair screaming out behind her. She had the look of a girl who cared much more about appearances than personality, and so was herself balanced in the material world.
Not Eriol's type, Sakura thought dully. She took a moment to wonder when he had returned to Japan. Their correspondence had become sporadic over the years, and she couldn't remember hearing from him in the past year or two. She hoped that when he left he wouldn't see her--it would probably make him re-think giving the guardianship of his beloved cards to her. Color came to her cheeks.
Not that she looked bad--she'd actually dressed up a little for this pity date, or whatever it was--an excuse to have a few drinks alone, she supposed. She was wearing a dress Tomoyo had sent her from her design college--every time the budding fashion designer came home on holiday she took Sakura's measurements again and continued to make dresses and other clothes in her size. Sakura had long since given up wearing the ridiculous things, though sometimes she put one on when Tomoyo was at home. The one she was wearing wasn't actually too bad--something from Tomoyo's minimalist period. It was rose pink and fastened over her left shoulder like a toga, but it was cut closer to her body.
She picked up the bruschetta she'd ordered with her wine and picked off a few pieces of tomato, and ate them. Might as well not waste a free meal, right?
"Kinomoto Sakura!" a male voice said, sounding pleased and surprised to see her. She looked up into Eriol's grinning face. The older he gets, the more he resembles Clow, she thought. His face had narrowed and he'd perfected Clow's smile, though it was less smirky than when they were young and more genuine.
"How have you been, Eriol-san?" she asked, trying to muster enthusiasm. He had to notice how much she'd changed since he left--and not for the better. She knew he probably wouldn't say anything, but she hated being pitied.
"About as good as you've been," he said and sank into the booth across from her. He took hold of her wine glass where the cup met the stem and pulled in a strange way until he held a separate glass of his own. He lifted his eyebrows and looked at her, and she could see the dark circles under his eyes and the worry lines beginning to appear on his forehead.
"May I?" he said, gesturing to the bottle of wine the waitress had brought her when she asked for a refill. She nodded and he poured them both generous cups. They both sipped deeply.
"So what brings you back to Japan?" she asked him, watching his fingers cup the glass. She could tell he still played piano, and it looked like guitar as well. Those long pale fingers were roughened with calluses.
"Kaho got married," he said, "and I decided to move out. It would have been an awkward situation, otherwise. I guess I've been here back about two years now... Haven't looked anyone up from the old days. Figured they were living their own loves and lives now." He smiled a little, and she could see the pain that her former teacher had caused him. He swallowed the rest of his glass in a hurry. He leaned back in the booth and looked up at the ceiling. The light glinted off his glasses. She supposed that he didn't want her to read his eyes.
"I heard that Li-kun got married," Eriol said. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. Where did that famous British politeness go? The wine had started to dull the thoughts a little but his casual words ripped her back open. It hurt so much she put her hand to her chest, expecting to find blood.
"Yeah," she said in a husky voice as the tears rose in her throat. She took another sip of wine. Well, not a sip really. She downed the rest of her glass.
"You went, didn't you?" he said. She nodded and pressed her face into her forearm. He leaned forward and pressed his palm on her arm affectionately.
"I went to hers," he said. "In fact," he said and laughed, "I was the man of honor. She said there was no woman she loved more than I, whom she loved like a brother, to take that honored place."
"Meiling asked me to be a bridesmaid," Sakura mumbled into her arm and tasted the tears that had leaked somehow from her eyes. "But I said no."
She knew Meiling meant well, but Sakura couldn't make herself do it. Syaoran had four sisters that stood up with them instead.
"You were stronger than I was, then," Eriol said. "I kept thinking that maybe in the middle she would turn to me--like when she gave me her bouquet to hold, or when she had to say the words--and say, maybe, that this was all a joke. That she still loved me. That this guy she was standing there with was wrong and that I needed to get up and take his place. And I watched her every moment. Lord, she was beautiful in that dress. A moon angel, a female Yue. And she never looked away from his smiling face. She really loved him. I got really drunk that night," he said reflectively.
Sakura wiped her eyes and scooted to the end of the booth. "I'm sorry, Eriol," she said softly. "I guess love isn't as simple as we thought it was, all those years ago."
"I guess not," Eriol said placidly. He took his glasses off and began to clean them. "So why are you here tonight, Kinomoto-san?"
Sakura shrugged. "I had this idea that maybe my invincible spell still worked."
"But doesn't it?" Eriol said. "You met a friend when you were down. That's all one needs, sometimes."
"I should go home," Sakura said, though she hated the idea of the empty house and the slight thump behind her eyes that warned of a slight hangover in the morning.
"Let me walk you home," he said. It was a glimpse of the old him and his old-fashioned gallantry. She nodded. She hoped she wouldn't throw up in front of him. There was still part of her that wanted to impress him.
Gently he placed his hand at her elbow and helped her out the door. The waitress stared after them. They had left the amount of the bill to the yen on a gift card on the table, without ever receiving the check. That made her a little curious. But she was thankful that someone had finally showed up who would take care of that poor girl.
Eriol decided that neither of them were safe to drive, and they were about halfway to Sakura's house when she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
"Eriol, I don't want to go home," she said.
"Touya and Fugitaka will be worried," he said practically. She sagged a little in his grasp. Carefully he adjusted the amount of alcohol in his blood to almost nothing. The benefits of being a reincarnated magician...
"Touya's been out of the house for several years now, and my dad's on a dig," she said. She sank down onto her knees and he put a hand on her shoulder protectively.
"Eriol, is life supposed to hurt like this?" she asked. He crouched down at eye level to her.
"Sometimes," he said regretfully.
She drew a quick breath and shouted to the sky, "IT'S NOT ALL GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT!"
"Nonsense," Eriol said as she began sobbing and collapsed into his chest. "There was a reason I called it your invincible spell."
She hit him hard in the breastbone, enough to make him gasp. With more strength than one would guess in that skinny body, he picked her up and cradled her like a child. He muttered something in Chinese and the Cardmistress fell asleep, no resistance.
He took her to her house and tucked her into bed. In sleep her worries relaxed and she looked like the old Sakura again.
"You'll be all right," he whispered, kissed her on the forehead, and went home to his own lonely house.