IMPORTANT!
It's already stated in the summary, but, just in case you missed it, this is not a stand-alone story. This is a sequel to another story I wrote, called "Do you remember love?". You must read that one first, or this won't make any sense to you. You can find the link for it in my profile!
1. Awake
"There is no coincidence in this world... there's only hitsuzen."
...
[Now].
I wake up in the dead of night, in that hour just before dawn when the sky is as dark as it can possibly get and everything is so still and quiet it seems as if life itself was on hold. There are no sounds coming from the house nor the street; and the darkness is so pitch black that even though my eyes are open, I can't see anything. I know that I'm awake though, because of those words that still reverberate in my head, and that familiar, unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Waking up has always been somewhat weird for me.
In my dreams, I see things that hide from me when I'm awake, things that I can only sense, glimpse like through a dark, thick veil, unfold freely before me, more vividly and more clearly than when I depend on my human, fleshy senses. I can see the past, the present and the future with full, complete detail, I see colors that my eyes can't really capture and my brain can't even begin to process, I hear sounds that aren't meant for human ears or human comprehension, sounds that come from the sky and the stars and the Earth itself; sounds I try to recreate, unsuccessfully, when I'm awake, in those countless hours I spend by the piano, in a knowingly hopeless, futile attempt.
In my dreams, I am really myself. Not Clow Reed, Eriol Hiiragizawa, or any other; but me, my true self, the bare essence of my being, free from those names and those faces and those boundaries. Free from everything. In my dreams I have no powers, and yet I feel more powerful and whole than I could ever imagine in my waking life.
Maybe that's why things always feel so coarse and nonsensical to me in the few seconds after I wake up. Waking up means returning to a place and a time and a name; whichever they may be at any current moment. Sometimes they feel absolutely random, and I can go to sleep as Eriol Hiiragizawa, for example, with the disturbing feeling that I could just as easily wake up as someone else, in a different place and time, in any of the many bodies I had through my many lives. Waking up is not that different from being born. It throws me back to a place where I can't see those unnamed colors nor hear that timeless song anymore; a predictable, boring world where every day the sun goes up and down more or less the same, where seasons follow each other always in the same way and people get born, grow up, consume their short lives in a race for things they're doomed to lose and then turn back to dust, with such a clockwork precision that makes you wonder if there is actually a reason for this colossal nonsense to even happen at all.
I can't seem to find any.
So, I play along with this ridiculous game for some time, until I get too old, too bored, or too jaded to keep playing. Magic was a way of rebelling, a form of protest, a way to bend the rules a little, to introduce some chaos into that smothering order. But magic isn't really a chaotic force; it has its own laws, its own boundaries, and I worked hard to break them all, to trespass them, to redefine them... and I somewhat succeeded, although at a tremendous cost. There was a point when I was able to do almost anything I wanted. And yet... I wasn't satisfied.
In the long run, magic only served me as a source of amusement. It never gave me fulfillment, I never really found in it what I was looking for. What I'm looking for is something I can only glimpse when I'm asleep, something I can't even begin to explain, because it's as impossible to capture with words as those colors and sounds I can only see in my dreams.
But why am I telling you all of this now, if you can't really hear me?
Maybe it's because I want you to understand; maybe it's because deep down I know you can, in fact, hear me. Or because even deeper, deeper down, I know it doesn't really matter if you hear me or not.
I just need to tell you. Because, unknowingly, you have become such an important piece in this game. The most important piece. The only important piece.
It's only fair that I try to explain you why.
So I wake up at the dead of night, with that vague, unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach and those ominous, fatidical words still echoing in my head, and I'm unable to see or hear anything, but, unlike any other time I've woken up, this time the world around me doesn't feel random nor absurd. Even though the clarity, the boundless lucidness from my dream life is quickly fading away, leaving me only as keen and insightful as any other human being can be (which is not much), I still somehow manage to retain the feeling that this name, this body, this world are the ones I was supposed to wake up to from the very beginning; that this is it, the moment I've been waiting for my entire life, all of my entire lives. That everything that happened before was just a preparation for this. Even if I can't quite remember what "this" is.
There is no coincidence in this world.
In the dark, I feel about the bedsheets by my side, looking for you; but you're not there. I can feel some of your warmth, of your scent still on them; a subtle trace of your presence that lets me know that you were indeed here, besides me, maybe a moment ago. And then a very human, idiotic instinct makes me look towards the bathroom door, searching for that line of light on the floor, that line that would tell me that everything is okay, that there's a logical reason for your absence, that the world is still rotating on its axis and in a few hours the sun will rise and it would be just another ordinary day; the line that would give me the reassurance I need to stop thinking crazy and go back to sleep. But the room is immersed in such pitch-black darkness, and there's no line of light on the floor, there's no line of light anywhere; and I start feeling like a chill on my skin, in the pit of my stomach when I realize that the bathroom light isn't the only light I can't find. There's another luminous thread, a finer, more subtle one, that is hiding from me as well. I feel a gust of cold air against my chest, and I notice that the bedroom door is open.
The only thing is hitsuzen.
It would be impossible to explain to you the twinge of fear, of dread in the back of my stomach, so dreadful precisely because I can't really explain why it's there; like the aftertaste of some intense déjà vu that I can't seem to recall. As if something inside me knew exactly what this means and what is about to happen but had forgotten about it, left with only the certainty that there's something ominous in your strange, unjustified absence, in this bottomless silence I find when I reach for you and that I can't really understand.
Where are you?
Why aren't you by my side?
Why can't I sense you?
I turn on the light, with the unsettling feeling that this is something I've already lived. I get up from bed, and I shiver when I feel the cool air stroking my half-naked body. I get myself into some robe and go out to the hallway, although I'm not really sure what for. All I know is that you're not here and I must find you, it's imperative that I find you, even if I have to do it the hard, crude way, with my clumsy feet and eyes and hands; now that your radiance, your luminous presence is somehow hidden from me, like faded or obscured by something. I don't want to ponder about what this could mean, I just need to see you, hear you, and soothe down this anxiety that has started growing inside my chest with every passing second.
But what I see when my eyes finally get used to the dim light of the hallway is anything but soothing, and that dreadful word comes immediately to my mind.
Hitsuzen.
You're there, standing in the middle of the corridor, almost indistinguishable among such darkness. I barely catch a glimpse of you, of the white fabric you wear, of your bare feet touching the floor, walking away from me, and I have to turn on the lights so that the darkness doesn't swallow you. But it's only when I turn them on, that I truly realize that something really non-logical, really bad is going on. You're walking away through a corridor that goes as far as the eye can see, and your hand is on the wall, touching the pictures that hang from it as you move forwards, and a distressing knot forms in my chest, because now I'm sure I've already lived this before.
No.
Not again.
Is it real this time? Is that really you in there?
For a moment, I doubt if I'm awake. Because this feels like some kind of dream inside a dream, like some kind of endless nightmare I can't seem to wake up from.
But it only lasts a moment. Because deep down, I know that I'm awake, fully awake, maybe for the first time ever. And I know I can't hide inside my dreams anymore.
It's time.
…
[At the beginning].
It all started that night, that fateful night of that fateful day when I left her at Tsukimine Temple.
I mean, in truth it had started a long, really long time ago; so long it was impossible to say how or when the mechanism that had been working silently in the background had really begun to move. But I became aware for the first time that something big was building up, on the night of that strange day.
The night when she came to me.
I had spent the rest of that grey, cold afternoon wandering around, like a silent witness of the rubble that that terrible storm had left around the entire town. Fallen trees, flooded streets… even a squashed car under a light pole that couldn't withstand the rage of the wind. And dirt, and mud, and leaves and branches everywhere… and no one, virtually not a soul on the streets. The entire city looked deserted as if it was the day after some kind of strange apocalypse, and if I wasn't able to sense other people's presence, it would have felt like walking through a ghost town. That gray and isolated city, so different from the busy and colorful Tomoeda I remembered, made me feel some kind of weird apprehension; as if I was the sole survivor of some sudden and unexpected cataclysm.
It wasn't the first time I've felt like that. In a way, that's what my life always has been: an endless roaming among the remains and debris of some catastrophe that always passed me by, not really touching me, but leaving nothing but devastation behind.
Dammit, Eriol, don't be a drama queen. Things aren't so bad... they are okay. They are exactly as they should be.
I sighed. I knew it was true; I wasn't the sole survivor of this particular, underwhelming catastrophe. There was another soul in this god-forsaken town whose presence stood out from the rest with an unusual vividness; there was someone else among all this rubble who walked with a more determined pace than mine. If only I could get closer to her, if I could hold her hand, I would have felt more at ease. I would have known that somehow we were going find shelter and survive, together, and that this gray, dead city would eventually come back to life and fill with colors again. That soul, the first one that had resonated with mine in such a long time; the first one who was able to understand the loneliness of my wandering. There was nothing else that I wanted to do as I languidly roamed about, but to feel that ethereal, thin thread that connected us, to sense it was still there, even if she wasn't really here… And that was exactly what I shouldn't do, what I should avoid at any cost if I didn't want to make things worse; to seek her, to remember her, to dream her, to think about her amethyst eyes and their carefully concealed fire, her tender, ivory skin, her hair like raven feathers, so dark and soft and bringer of such irresistible, terrifying omens...
Stop it, dammit! Eriol, I swear to God...
She would come back; the thread stretched and stretched between us but it didn't cut. At some point, it would shorten up and we would meet again, I knew it, even if I didn't know when or how. That would have to be enough for now; thinking about it wouldn't do me any good, obsessing about it wouldn't speed up her return.
And why do I want her to come back, anyway?
Is there anything to be gained from it, for any of us?
Probably not.
Certainly not for her.
I came back home at some indefinite hour between dusk and nightfall, trying to shake off the cold that had gotten into my very bones and dragging my feet with a tiredness like that of death. I couldn't understand the strange melancholy that had overcome me; why, if this was what I chose. I was sure I've done the right thing, the only thing that could be done, really… Although, no, that wasn't entirely true; I could also have done something else, thousands of something elses. I could have not returned to Japan. I could have not looked for her, and once found, once in my arms, I could have held her tightly and not let her go. I could have ignored the path she had chosen and convinced her to stay with me, to turn her back on everything; I could have seized the opportunity to make her mine, really mine. But I didn't, because deep down I knew it wouldn't be real, and that would never satisfy me. So now all I could do was wait, wait for the day when her path would lead her back to me, hoping that when it happens it would be because she had chosen so. Because she had chosen me.
Would she ever…?
Stop.
Right now, she had her own things to sort out, and God, wasn't I becoming the expert on women who always had their own things to sort out?
Oh, damn it. Fuck.
Like every time I followed that train of thought, that ominous, ghost-like image formed before my eyes before I could do anything to prevent it, like a conditioned reaction. Then, I had no other choice than to walk by that portrait, that annoying portrait that for some reason I was unable to get rid of, and stare for a moment at those reddish, unfathomable, catlike eyes. I had to look at them for a moment, feeling some sort of indefinite melancholy, then sigh and shrug, in a gesture that could almost be of disdain, and walk away, reassured that I was still me, Eriol Hiiragizawa, and that the old ghosts were gone, exorcised... at least until next time.
Women who are out of the ordinary always have their own agenda; you should know by now, you dumbass mage. They never settle comfortably by your side, they're more like a force of nature, like the rain; they come and go as they please, and they can catch you unguarded in the middle of the street at any random moment and soak you through. You don't get to choose when they fall on you.
To me, love has always been like that, more or less. Something rare and bittersweet; an endless counterpoint of holding close and letting go. Each one I've ever loved had given me something amazing, but also took just as much away from me; and after so many years and so many times and so many lost ones, it felt as if I was left with almost nothing I could call my own, but memories. What could I possibly have to offer to her? And how has she managed to, in so little time, cast such a powerful spell on me? What is this feeling I have every time I'm around her, this absurd premonition?
I liked her, I liked her a lot; but I could deal with that, that was easy to understand. What was not to like about her? She was pretty, and smart, and kind, and lovely, and complex, and so, so many other things… But this, this other thing I felt, this was what troubled me, because I couldn't really explain it; because it had nothing to do with all of those things. This vague, indefinite feeling that there was something else about her, something that set her apart from all those others I had loved in my many lives… That she had a power in her hands to give me something, to show me something nobody else ever could. Something that was the exact thing I had been looking for since always. Something I still didn't know what it was, but reminded me a lot of what I felt when I was in my dreams.
Freedom?
It was her eyes, I knew. There was something in those eyes that just told me that, if I plunged deep enough, I could find the answers I've been looking for my entire life. My whole bunch of entire lives. But I haven't dared to do so; and I've found wonderful excuses for that: because the time wasn't right, because she wasn't ready, because she had things she needed to do first, because she wasn't really mine. All of them perfectly good, valid reasons; yet they also served the purpose to hide the most important one, the one I didn't want to see: that it was me who wasn't ready to do what needed to be done in order for that miracle, for any miracle, to happen.
A leap of faith.
In the end, the real reason was: because I was a coward. And that was kind of annoying.
...
It was late, and I, locked up in the music room, couldn't stop pulling furious notes from that old piano; notes that were, and at the same time weren't, those from her song.
I didn't want to, I really didn't want to play that melody, I didn't want to do anything that could call her, that could invoke her; but my fingers insisted on disobeying me, and unexpectedly those chords seemed to appear in the middle of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody; startling me like a rainstorm that catches you by surprise in the middle of the street, and I could hear her sweet voice reverberating in that music room again, saying do you remember, do you remember... And I just couldn't not remember, and I couldn't stop thinking about the rain; in my mind, that song would always be connected to the rain, and the troubled look in her violet eyes and the water dripping from her hair and her clothes, and also the thunder, like those that woke me up in the middle of the dark, just to find her asleep by my side, and the rain hitting my windowpanes and the water that slid down her hair, her body as I soaped her up and pressed her against the bath tiles, and the sound of the rain lulling us in bed as she snuggled up against me and slowly fell asleep… I was trying my hardest to not think about her, but her song was like the rain, falling on me suddenly and soaking me through, leaking from my fingers and falling on my piano keys and soaking me of her.
I might have stayed like that for hours, trapped by the song and the rain and the memories, annoyed at myself yet at the same time drinking that melancholy as if it was the most exquisite wine. But, I couldn't.
Because suddenly, something unexpected happened. An intense, overwhelming feeling that shook me, because it was so absurd, so ridiculous and impossible and yet so certain, that it pulled me right out of my musings and made my fingers stand still on the piano keys, petrified.
She's... coming back?
It was ridiculous, yet I had no doubt: it was as if the invisible thread between us had suddenly tensed up, pulling from my chest, as her presence started to grow closer and clearer with every minute. In a more subtle way, I could sense her reaching out for me, and I, I couldn't get out of my shock. I could have waited for days, months, even years for her return; I've never imagined it could happen like this, so soon, just a few hours after we parted ways.
Why?
I felt my heart pounding and my mind racing, but I stubbornly tried to keep playing for the next half hour, in a futile attempt to not let myself be overcome by anxiety. It was no use.
Well, what if she's coming back? It doesn't necessarily mean anything. Things couldn't have changed much in such a short time. Maybe she's just coming to bring Nakuru's outfits... but no, she didn't even have time to make them. Then... why? And why does my descendant's presence feels smaller and more far away with every passing moment? What on Earth has happened in these few hours?
In any case, she would be here soon, it was just a matter of time, and then I would be able to ask her; but minutes stretched like hours and I couldn't really focus on the music anymore; not with this tingling in the back of my stomach and this tension and perplexity growing inside my chest. It was unbelievable and annoying, what this woman did to me; I was acting like a teenager, I couldn't remember having felt like this in so, so many years. Not since…
She's here.
I could almost see her, getting out of a cab, hesitantly going through the front gate, and, unable to wait anymore, I got up, leaving the melody unfinished, and walked to the front door. There wasn't anything else in my mind but her presence; it was like a beacon that radiated light and warmth in a cold and dark night, but suddenly I noticed an odd change in it, as if…
I opened the door at the exact moment she hesitated before ringing the bell, and I found myself standing before her startled, confused face. She looked freakishly pale, her eyes swollen and misty and her lips a bit shaky; and my heart clenched when I saw her in such a state.
I wanted to ask her a million questions, I wanted to know why was she here, what happened with Sakura, why did she look so beaten up; I wanted to ask her what that moment of hesitation had meant, what would have happened if, instead of opening the door, I had waited a few moments more. Would she have rung the bell, or would she have turn around and left? But as I looked at her, I realized that I couldn't ask any of those things, because none of them really mattered; the only thing that mattered was her eyes that stared at me with such dismay, and her mouth that opened, like trying to form words without success, as if she desperately wanted to say something, anything; and all my questions faded away, disappeared like by magic, and I knew there was only one thing that I could do.
I put a finger over her lips, shushing her, as my other hand reached for hers, and pulled. Softly, so very softly. She looked at me for a moment, her eyes looking startled and somehow relieved at the same time. She took one hesitant step, and then, to my surprise... threw herself into my arms.
How can I possibly explain what I felt then, as I stood there, at my porch, holding her to me as if she had just returned from the other side of the world, as if she had just come home after years and years of wandering... And even though I still couldn't quite understand it or believe it, I knew it was real; I knew these were her arms tightening around my back, this was her face hiding against my shoulder and her body melting into my embrace, and whatever the reason for this happening was, I couldn't care less.
She was back. She had returned to me. That was all that mattered.
I held her for a short moment; until I felt her mumble something against my shoulder.
"What?" I asked.
She whispered again, this time near my ear, as if she was ashamed or afraid someone could hear her; and this time I caught what she said, and I couldn't stop this inexplicable feeling of joy from forming in my chest. Crazy girl, you and your sudden, lovely, ridiculous shyness. Unable to stop the smile that was forming on my lips, I pushed her away a little to stare at her teary eyes; and how on Earth was I going to explain to her that that thing she seemed almost afraid to ask me was the thing I've been involuntarily longing for the entire day?
"Silly," I just said, as I brushed a lock of hair away from her face. "Of course you can stay here tonight. You can stay all the nights you want."
...
And so, by some inexplicable twist of fortune, she was at my house again; a scenario so unlikely only a few hours before that I still had trouble believing it. She had mumbled something about wanting to take a bath, to recover from the cold of the street and to clear up her mind; and so I was in my bedroom, waiting for her and smelling the subtle but sweet aroma of roses seeping from behind the door of my en-suite bathroom (apparently, the bath salts she had chosen this time), and making use of all my willpower to not start picturing her there, to not indulge into the wonderful vision of her naked, wet skin among all the foam and the steam… Because for a mage as powerful as myself, a door wasn't a barrier of any kind, nor any distance could really prevent me from seeing whatever I wanted to see, when I wanted to see it. But it would be undoubtedly wrong, so I stayed there on my armchair, lethargically reading by the fireplace and determined to keep my mind away from the soft splashing sounds and the subtle changes I could sense in her as she enjoyed that so needed moment of intimacy, of pleasant solitude with the immensity of her own body.
It was odd; how little by little these abilities of mine were starting to annoy me. I was so used to feel other people's presence, to sense even the tiniest changes in their auras and know (more or less) where they were and how they were feeling, that I had seldom questioned it before. It was an unconscious thing, as normal to me as breathing, and it was undoubtedly a very helpful ability; it has proven so countless times in the past. And yet, however… when it came to her, I couldn't help but feel weird about it, like… somewhat guilty. As if I was spying on her again, like I did that night when I came back to Japan, but in a closer, even more intrusive way. Did I really have any right to know how she was feeling, if she didn't want to tell me?
It wasn't that I could know her feelings for sure or with total accuracy; it was merely a hint, a clue what I got to perceive, it was more of an agitation in my own energy that responded to hers, but still, it felt unfair. She didn't have such an advantage, and somehow it felt as if having it wasn't an advantage at all; it was just something that set us apart, a constant reminder of how uneven we were, of how unlike me she was; an irritating reminder that she was just another mortal girl I happened to like, one that could never truly understand me and that would eventually turn to dust and disappear, like all the others.
And yet, nonetheless…
If I managed, even for a short while, to turn it off, to dispose of that sense just like a regular human would put on a blindfold to dispose of sight for a while, and let myself be lead only by sound, or smell; if I forced myself to stop sensing her in that clear, distinctive way only magical beings such as myself could… then I started glimpsing something else, something that has been there the whole time, and yet, somehow, I've missed; hidden by the radiance of her presence. Something that was like a completely new territory, one that I've never imagined or transited before, where everything felt different, more vivid, more intense, yet at the same time more fragmented and enigmatic and mysterious, because it could only be experienced in the dark. Then, like a man who has gone blind and has started discovering the world with his other senses, I had to feel my way around her, I had to guide myself by the tiniest details, like the scent of roses coming from the bathroom, the slight sounds the water made whenever her body moved; I had to put all those things together and try to find her through them, understand what they meant, and be able to put up with some lack of certainty, or even the most absolute cluelessness. It was like peeking into an abyss; scary, yet so tantalizing at the same time... like some kind of return to innocence; but, to what innocence could possibly return someone who had always known too much, seen too much, understood too much? What innocence could recover someone who never had any?
Stop it, Eriol.
The bathroom door opened, pulling me out of my musings. I looked up, and suddenly everything was so much more than just rose aroma and water sounds... And what a vision it was: her bare feet with red painted toenails (it was the first time I noticed the color of her nails), her long, soft, slender legs, almost entirely exposed, her frame standing out underneath the fabric of the t-shirt she had borrowed from me (to not bother Nakuru again), and even though they were a bit big for her and gave her a somewhat-boyish kind of look, they suited her so nicely I couldn't help but be thankful for her thoughtfulness; and her hand holding a towel as she tried to dry her wet hair that fell messily over her back and shoulders, and her face… her face was an entire chapter on itself. The colors had returned to it, to her cheeks, to her lips; the dismayed look had disappeared from her eyes, which stared at me radiantly, and the most amazing thing of them all: there was a smile on her face.
"Feeling better?" I asked, a tiny smile appearing on my face too.
"Yes… thank you. I needed that bath. Don't worry, I'm alright now," she said. I hadn't asked her anything, but she must have noticed the concern in my eyes from earlier.
"Are those clothes okay?"
"They... smell like you," she said with a strange, amused little smile on her face. "They're comfortable. Eriol... thank you for letting me stay here again. I just couldn't go home tonight, after... well..."
Sakura. Of course. It was always about that, wasn't it? I couldn't help but start wondering again about what had happened between them after I left her at Tsukimine Temple; about the reason for her return and my heir's presence that felt more and more distant with every moment. It seemed that the most extreme, drastic things had happened in those few hours, and yet I couldn't ask her about them; I couldn't make her face all those things again, not when she had just sought rest and shelter in my house. In me.
"Do you want to… talk about it?" I cautiously said.
She just smiled.
"Not really. I hope you don't mind, but... it's the last thing I want to do."
"Okay, then. Would you rather go downstairs and eat something? There must be some leftover dinner-"
"No. I'm not hungry, and if I go downstairs like this, I'll give Nakuru even more reasons to tease me, and nobody wants that," she chuckled. "I think I'd rather stay here, if you don't mind. I'm sorry... I'm making a nasty habit of coming here uninvited. I don't want to bother you or anything."
"Yes, it was all very inconsiderate of you. My big plans of sitting around and doing nothing are now completely ruined."
She chuckled, although there was a little bit of pink in her cheeks.
"I'm sorry," she said with remorseful eyes. "But hey, how about this: we can sit around and do nothing... together."
"Daidouji, you have the craziest ideas," I said. "Okay... we can give it a try."
She smiled, sat on one of the other comfy chairs that were in my room, pulled her legs up, and ensconced herself on it.
"Can I borrow a book too?" she asked.
"Sure... but I have no other ones here. You'll have to go downstairs, to the library, and pick one."
"Oh, no... that's too dangerous," she said. Then, after a moment, "The one you're reading... what's it about?"
"I... honestly have no idea," I said, chuckling. "Some novel about outer space... but I'm having trouble paying attention to it."
"You read sci-fi?" she said, looking at me with interest. "How... unexpected."
"Why?"
"I don't know... a mage reading sci-fi... it just doesn't feel right, you know?"
I laughed out loud.
"Would it be more acceptable if I was reading about hobbits, or something like that?"
This time it was her who laughed.
"Maybe. Don't you read fantasy books?"
"Not anymore. They usually tend to annoy me, because they get the magic part so wrong. This, on the other hand..." I said, staring at the book in my hand, "most of the time I don't know what they're talking about. I mean, what the hell is a parsec? What does antimatter mean... or hyperspace?"
"I guess it's all just... a different kind of magic. With different rules."
"Exactly. And I have very little idea of what those rules are and how they work, so, I'm always in for a surprise. I like it."
"Of course you do," she said, laughing, after a moment. "A mage, interested in futuristic science... and yet, surrounded by so many old things. You're quite the contradictory character, Eriol."
"I prefer the term complex, if you don't mind." She laughed again. "But I don't see the contradiction. They're not mutually exclusive things."
"Well, sci-fi is about the future... but everything around you screams past. This room, for example... everything looks like it came from an antique store, although... strangely well preserved. Like old things that were made yesterday, somehow."
"That's because they've been magically preserved," I merely said.
"And they all came from your previous lives... didn't they?"
"Most of them, yeah."
"Eriol, I'm sorry to tell you this, but... you're a nostalgic," she said, somewhat teasingly.
"Oh, no. God forbid," I chuckled. "Okay... I see your point. Still, there's no contradiction. The idea of a distant, unknown future has always fascinated me... but the past is what I know. It's where I'm comfortable at. Anyway, that's not the only reason why I keep all of these things."
"It's okay," she said, smiling. "Old things have their own charm too; you're allowed to like them. This room, for example... it's really nice, and cozy, and you have so many interesting things here..." she said, looking around with a new, strange appreciation. "Why didn't I notice before?"
I knew why. The first time she was here she was drunk; the second time it was too dark, and the third time… the third time all kinds of other things happened, things that were way more interesting than the load of old stuff I had in my room and that she was now staring at with growing interest.
"Do you mind?" she said, getting up from the chair and walking towards one of the things that had caught her attention, to examine it better.
"Go nuts," I said, and as she walked around the room studying every corner of it, I pretended to keep reading, although, in truth, I dedicated myself to watching her. To have her here again, walking around my bedroom in my t-shirt, barefoot and with her hair all wet, was just so weird, so unexpected and so wonderful that I couldn't stop looking at her in awe, wondering if it was for real, if she was really there, half-expecting that she would turn into a butterfly and fly away through the window any moment now, and God, I swear if that would have happened I wouldn't have felt any more amazed than I already was.
As I looked at her, an odd feeling was starting to overcome me, a feeling that I seemed to recall from those long, revealing, vivid dreams of mine. As if every object around her had turned more solid, more distinct than ever, yet at the same time they could change into any form or shape at any given moment. As if those colors I could only see in my dreams were actually here; right now, in my bedroom, and I was able to sense them, vivid and vibrant and just underneath the surface, waiting for me to see them, and all I needed to do was to open my eyes, really open them, and...
What on Earth is this?
She seemed to ignore me completely as she observed every inch of the room with an air of intense interest; stopping from time to time before some object that caught her attention, grabbing it and studying it. I did have tons of crap and weird stuff scattered all over the house that I've collected from my previous lives. And even if it was annoying to accept, she was right, I was a bit of a nostalgic, because the really precious things were here, in my room, where I could have them close to me and see them and touch them; they were things that had belonged to me or my loved ones in other lives, things that meant something, most of them, magical items of some sort disguised as normal things, such as hand mirrors, pocket watches and small statues, portraits, chandeliers and even a tiny, ornamented chest that contained the most valuable object in my possession. And she walked around the room so casually, looking at them, touching them, fascinated by them even though I knew she couldn't feel their magic, and it was such a strange scene, that seemed right out of one of my dreams.
"You know..." she said with a dreamy voice as she ran her fingers over the ornamented chest lid, and for a moment I felt some kind of odd nervousness. "I, too, like really old things, like the ones you have in here. They usually have such interesting stories..."
"Oh, now I understand what you saw in me," I said wryly.
"Idiot," she said, chuckling. "You're not that old. Not as much as you think you are, anyway. Like now, for instance… you look remarkably young," she said, staring at me with a strange, enigmatic look in her eyes.
"Well, people do tell me I look a few centuries younger than I really am. Good genes, I guess?"
She chuckles again.
"I wasn't referring to your looks. I meant your eyes. Age really shows in the eyes, you know? Old people usually have wise, tired eyes."
"Hey, I take offense at that... I am wise and tired."
"Well, you don't look like it right now," she said, a gleam of amusement in her eyes. "Quite the contrary... you couldn't look any more like a teenager."
"Really?" I said, a bit surprised. "And how is that?"
She held my gaze with that amused gleam in her eyes.
"As if you never had a half-dressed woman in your bedroom before."
That I did not expect; it caught me off guard and made me laugh.
"Is that so?"
"Yes... but it's okay. I... kind of like it."
She said that with that smile on her face, and suddenly it was as if thousands of years were gone from my shoulders at a stroke of a pen; disappeared, just like that. In the deepest astonishment, I realized that I had, indeed, been looking at her like that. And that I, oddly, kind of liked it too.
She continued looking around the room, going through my stuff once again, until suddenly, she saw the old record player that was almost hidden in a corner of the room, buried underneath a huge pile of records. She went towards it, grabbed some of the records from the pile, and started looking at them with seeming interest.
"Jazz records? But, these aren't from a past life… are they? I mean, you didn't live in that time, did you?"
"No, but, can't a person like good music without necessarily having to live in the age it was composed?" I protested.
"Of course. Actually, it makes perfect sense. I can totally picture you listening to these records, late at night, sitting on that armchair, with a glass of wine in your hand, brooding like there's no tomorrow. Am I right?"
I frowned a little and grunted. Because she was right, of course.
"I'm glad you find me to be such a good cliché. Consistency is important. But don't get so cocky now, you don't have me all figured out, you know?"
She let out another one of those vivid, gleeful chuckles I was starting to get to know so well, against my will, I felt myself answering with a smile of my own.
"But I'm getting closer, am I not? I've just learned a few things about you; for instance that you like old things too. Because this record player isn't a memento from another life, you bought it on this one, when vinyl was already outdated, instead of getting a digital player like normal people do," she said, seemingly amused and what looked like sort of... pleased?
"Well, I'm not normal people, am I? Like you said... sometimes old can have its charm too. I've found that these can give a much, much nicer experience than the digital ones ever will," I said.
"Really? Then, I have to try them. May I?" she asked, pulling one of the records out of its case and lifting the record player's lid.
I nodded.
I watched in mild amusement as this child of the digital era tried to figure out how analog devices worked; but was pleased to see the whole turntable, tonearm ceremony -although somewhat clumsily- executed in a more than decent amount of time. Soon, the room was flooded by the scratching sound of the needle hitting the vinyl, a sound I so loved to hear, because it was the sound of anticipation, the promise of great things to come; it reminded me that even the most beautiful things were created from imperfection. Suddenly, the sound of an oboe, hinting the beginning of a suggestive rhythm; soon followed by some violins and a contrabass that created a bittersweet harmony, and I saw her close her eyes and let herself be carried away by the sounds. And then… a voice started to sound and vibrate in the air; a sensual, captivating female voice that drawled words and syllables through that music and set the melody with an unmatched feeling… And as the sounds surrounded us, I stayed there entranced, looking at her standing by the record player with her eyes closed, her shape outlining in the background of my room, my things, with a vividness and a clearness I'd never seen before... almost as if she was glowing.
Suddenly she turned around and looked at me with an odd, gleaming look in her eyes and a shyish smile on her face.
"This music… really gets into you. Like it wants to be danced. Don't you think?"
"Yeah... absolutely," I said, a bit surprised but also somewhat delighted by what I thought could be an unspoken proposition. Then, I decided to take a chance. I got up from my chair, went toward her, and offered her my hand.
"What are you doing?" she asked, her cheeks turning an adorable shade of pink.
"Let's do it."
"What? I... I was joking. I've never even danced to this kind of music before. I wouldn't know how."
"I don't care," I said, grabbing her hand and tugging from it. "The music wants us to do it."
She chuckled a little, but she was still blushing.
"O-okay."
And suddenly I was sliding my arm around her waist and pulling her towards me, until we were close, so close that our faces almost touched, and her arm went around my shoulder, and her eyes set on mine and that shyish smile still on her face as she let me lead her and my other hand held hers, and suddenly everything became just sweet sounds and unexpected bliss, because nothing could ever be as strange and at the same time as perfect as this, as being there, so close one from the other and letting the music take over as Ella sang melancholically to a blue moon. Despite what she had said, she didn't step on me once, her feet and her body moved in perfect sync with the music, they seemed to merge into the rhythm and the wonderful sounds of the strings and the winds and the voice… Music always seemed to have that effect on her, as if it transported her to a different reality, and I, I just wanted to be carried away with her. It was impossible to resist, the witchcraft of her eyes on mine, the sounds that melted in my ears and the scent of roses coming from her skin, from her hair, and as I danced with her I realized in awe that everything was as clear and distinct as the aroma of roses; the sounds, the colors, everything seemed so much richer than usual, everything was so vivid and vibrant as I've never experienced in my waking life before, only in my dreams, and yet, it was happening right now... as if everything had brightened up around her, as if the colors of my room became alive, with reds that were redder than blood and greens like forest leaves and blues that reminded me of the most beautiful open sky…
And for once, I didn't want to rationalize it, to think about what all of this could mean; I just wanted to feel her, not with my magic but with my physical, human senses. Entranced, I drew her a little closer, and felt her head against my shoulder and her arm going tighter around my neck; I felt the wet freshness of her hair against my shoulder and the sweet scent of her skin, and the warmth of her body radiating from underneath the fabric of my t-shirt, and her soft, rhythmic heartbeats against my chest as our feet kept slowly moving with the music and a strange, unexpected feeling overwhelmed me and left me in a state of utter astonishment.
I felt happy. Happy like I couldn't remember ever feeling before; happy like a nineteen-year-old boy who has the girl of his dreams in his arms could be. Happy in its most untainted, simplest, purest form. At that moment there was nothing but her; there were no thoughts, no heaviness from hundreds of years of experiences and loss, no nostalgia for things long gone, no yearning for unreachable dreamlands, nothing. Everything I wanted, everything I could ever possibly need, was right here, right now. The rest had been erased by some mysterious miracle, and for a lapse as short or as long as a moment outside of time can be, those moments that can only be measured in breaths or heartbeats, I felt young, truly young; I was really a nineteen year old holding his sweetheart in his arms, with no memory of ever being the reincarnation of any powerful wizard.
I think that was the moment when I knew for sure, without any room for doubt, that this was not just some other mortal I happened to like.
This one could turn my entire world around. This one could become the one I could never live without again.
I was shocked; it was the first time something like that happened to me. I mean; this thing people call fascination, or even love, I've felt lots of times, plenty of times before; and I also knew that sooner or later it had to end. The feeling would eventually fade out, or the person would eventually go away or… even in the best-case scenario, they would eventually die. One way or another, I always knew it was something I could only savor for a limited amount of time, and that would leave me a hole in my chest when it was over. Such was my life, such was my curse; I had learned to accept it, even though I could never really manage to prevent it from tainting even my most joyous moments with a certain shade of bitterness, almost imperceptible but always, unavoidably there.
However, now…
"You were right," I felt her voice vibrating against my neck. "This is a nicer experience."
"You said you couldn't dance," I muttered into her hair, feeling a smile forming on my lips. "You little liar."
"I also said I wanted to do nothing with you… I guess I'm lying a lot today," she replied, staring at me with a strange twinkle in her eye.
However, now…
As her lips reached for mine and the music dragged us into a different kind of dance, but just as nice and swinging and delightful, I couldn't help but hear Ella's words in amazement.
And then there suddenly appeared before me
The only one my arms will ever hold
And how could that be a coincidence, how, if as I drew her against me and kissed her, and that old t-shirt slowly eventually fell into the floor, I could only feel the pure, untainted happiness of a young lad who beholds for the first time ever the miracle of his beloved's naked skin, and run my hands down her body and marvel at the feel of it and how it was all so fresh and new; as if I truly never had any other in my arms, as if I had never loved and lost who knew how many already, as if I'd never truly been anyone else but who I was now, Eriol Hiiragizawa, a pretentious, big-headed English guy (as she had once called me), and everything else has been just a senseless dream or a nightmare, a nightmare from which only like this, holding her so close to me and losing myself in her arms and that endless marvel that was her body, I could finally wake up.
…
[The first time].
It started more or less the same; waking up in the dark and not finding you by my side; the open door, the dark hallway... Getting up and going there, looking for you, and watching your whitish shape disappear among so much darkness. That feeling of strangeness that quickly gave way to bewilderment; a bewilderment that became deeper and deeper by the moment...
I remember turning the lights on and seeing you, just like I see you now, walking through that corridor, your fingers barely brushing against the portraits that hung on the wall. But that first time I didn't know what was going on, and I merely tried to call your name, softly; still thinking that there could be a normal explanation for your strange behavior. Sleepwalking, perhaps…
But you wouldn't stop, nor turn around to look at me; you just kept walking as if you didn't hear me. So I called you again, louder, but you kept ignoring me, as deaf or as indifferent as a vision or a statue could be. Then I walked towards you, trying to ease down the bit of anxiety that had started to form in my stomach. I laid a hand on your arm, but you just shook it off as if it was an annoying fly, and kept walking. So I stood in front of you, laid both hands firmly on your shoulders, and tried to make you look at me.
"Wait," I said. "What's wrong with you? Where are you going?"
Then you looked up, and God, I can't ever possibly express with words the cold that filled my chest when I saw your clouded, darkened eyes; eyes that looked through me without really seeing me, as if they were blind or perhaps staring at something that was way beyond me. And it was even worse when your lips opened and the words, sounding with that weird voice that wasn't really yours, sprouted from them.
"I must go. It's... calling me."
A feeling of unreality overcame me. I still get goosebumps when I recall it; you trying to keep walking, as if you could go through me, as if you were a ghost; and me stupidly asking who or what was that it was calling you. And then, suddenly, to feel that strange aura that surrounded you, and that gave that strange glow to your skin and that discarded for good the stupid hope of somnambulism, or any other normal explanation.
Magic.
It's goddamn magic.
I knew immediately, and my heart froze with dread.
Who the hell could have possibly done this to you?
How the hell could have they done it?
And more importantly... why?
"Tomoyo…" I muttered, trying to reassure you, or myself, I wasn't really sure. "Tomoyo, can you hear me? I don't know who did this to you, or why… but I will find out. And I will fix it. I'm the most powerful mage in existence; I will find a way to wake you up. Tomoyo. Tomoyo?"
Then you spoke again in that voice, and it was even more horrifying than before.
"That's not... that's not... who I am," I heard you mutter, and before I could even react, your hand went underneath the fabric of my housecoat, and with a quick yank you ripped the chain I was wearing around my neck, that chain I hadn't worn for a really long time and that I couldn't even remember putting on that night, that chain that had…
"What are you doing?" I exclaimed, perplexed.
It all happened in a second, and I remember it like in a haze. The light flowing from your body, blinding me for a second; that enormous, supernatural strength sprouting from you and your arms pushing me away with unprecedented violence. My body being thrown into the air and my head smashing against the wall, and the blinding pain that for a few moments didn't let me think. To open my eyes in the floor with difficulty, all dizzy and shaken, and to realize in sudden horror where it was that you were going.
The door at the end of the corridor.
God, how to explain you the dread that overwhelmed me when I saw you there, wielding that thing that shone inconceivably in your hand, and your lips whispering something I couldn't hear; and knew that I wouldn't get there in time, that I wouldn't be able to stop you, that it was the end; and that futile scream escaping from my throat as my hand reached out for you helplessly.
"Don't!"
And then to see that door open, to see the darkness bursting from it and swallowing you and me and the hallway and everything, and suddenly everything was shadows, an enormous, never-ending shadow that engulfed and consumed everything, and there was no longer floor nor ceiling nor walls nor anything, only a shapeless void, an endless nothingness, and amidst that nothingness I could hear your desperate, atrocious shriek; and I knew it would the last sound from you I would ever hear.
And the scream escaped from my throat, as that nothingness dragged me away and the pain ripped my body and my chest like a thousand knives.
…
I opened my eyes in the dark, with my breath choked up in my chest and a cold sweat running down my back and my heart beating out of control. Waking up has always felt weird for me, but never as weird as this time; when without having really come out of the fogginess and the confusion from the dream, not completely awake yet and not even sure of where I was, I looked for you by my side and didn't find you. How to explain to you what I felt then, that icy thing freezing my chest when I reached for your presence and couldn't find it anywhere; as if it had disappeared, as if you had ceased existing. And how to explain to you the relief and perplexity that flooded my veins, when my hands suddenly touched you in the dark, your warm, soft skin, your silky hair, and I felt you move and snuggle against me as I sat up and turned on the lamp on the nightstand and looked at your sleeping form with unbelieving eyes.
You're here.
You're alive.
And you're here!
Only then I could breathe normally again, and realize that that horror didn't really happen, that it was just a dream and that you were really here, here, where you were supposed to be. In body and presence, by my side, and so alive and beautiful I had to refrain myself from hugging you, from squeezing you into my arms so hard that it would almost hurt you; just to make sure that you were real.
I contented myself with just stroking your face, your shoulder, but my hands were still shaky, and I could still feel the unsettling anxiety inside me. Why couldn't I sense your presence when I woke up? What the hell happened in those brief moments, before I touched you in the dark and realized that you were here, by my side? And more importantly… What the hell was that dream?
Still pretty shaken and kind of befogged, I got up from the bed slowly, trying to not disturb you, and walked towards the bathroom. Like a sleepwalker, not really seeing anything, I turned on the light and closed the door behind me; turned on the tap and splashed my face with cold water. And then, I looked up into the bathroom mirror, and I saw the eyes that stared back at me.
Unfathomable, reddish, catlike eyes.
"Hello, Clow," the face that looked at me from the mirror said. "Long time no see."
And that's when I knew for sure that something huge had just started.
...
Author's notes:
Yey! I'm back!
It really is a pleasure, to be writing about these characters again. A short while after I finished writing "Do you remember love?", a series of crazy ideas started coming to my mind, about how that thing could have continued. Well, some of them seemed to root, and soon enough I realized I wouldn't be at peace until I wrote them down.
So, I started.
It took me a while to put them in order and make something coherent out of them; writing is a slow process for me, I read, re-read and correct everything a thousand times before even considering to upload, so even though I already have the entire story in my head, it may take me a while to write it all down. So once more, I'll appeal to your kindness and patience!
Well, I really hope you have enjoyed this first chapter. Let me tell you the rating will be set on M for the time being just to be on the safe side. I'm still not sure if this is going to get as sexually explicit as its prequel was. We'll see.
A little warning, though: this story will contain a few spoilers for xxxHolic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, concerning Clow Reed's life, not the stories themselves. It was kind of inevitable.
Speaking of which, the idea of "hitsuzen" is a very present one in those works, and in all Clamp's work really (also in CCS). That's why I included it here. It's a key point in this story. If you never heard of it before, check it out online, it's a pretty interesting philosophical concept.
All that being said, I hope I'll see you all in next chapter, and if you feel kind enough, please leave a review and let me know what you think!