Wings

Chapter 2

The first thing he did as soon as he got out of his room was to check the answering machine. There was already one message:

"'Ni-chan! You're still asleep! I can't believe it! I already called earlier but the phone just kept on ringing and ringing! Why do you absolutely refuse to have a phone in your room? No, Kero, don't open that. If there's an emergency call you won't be able to hear the phone from downstairs! You're so stubborn! Anyway, I was just going to… Kero, put that down! You're going to break it... and hoeeee!"

There was a rather loud crash from the background, followed by sounds of struggle: scuffling of feet, little screamsand then slamming of drawers.

What on earth… Touya thought frowning.

The voice message continued on, with Sakura now sounding a little breathless. "Now, look at this mess! I'll call back again, 'Ni-chan and Kero, you are so dead! Oh, 'ni-chan, don't forget to eat breakfast and check the mail, ok! Ja!"

The message ended there.

Typical of his sister. She couldn't just leave the stuff toy and go on about with her business, which was to call him first thing in the morning. It was unnecessary for her to call ofcourse, but he had ordered her to do just that.

"First thing in the morning, Kaiju. That means before you do anything else, you call home. You do understand what that means, right?"

"Ne, oni-chan, I'm beginning to think that you need me more than you let on!"

"'Course. My only source of entertainment is you. Now do that funny monster face again."

"Oni-chan!"

"Ah perfect!"

Touya smirked at the memory. It was true that Sakura could be really amusing and she doesn't even have to try to be amusing, which makes her even more amusing. And truth be told, he had gotten used to hearing Sakura's voice in the morning. He didn't want to miss her daily: "I'm going to be late!" "Hoeeee!" and "Oni-chan, I'm not a kaiju!"

Besides, she didn't seem to mind either. She had called him everyday and mostly, they just bicker about absolutely nothing and then she'd slam the phone down on him or the stuff toy would do something really stupid before the line would get cut. Today, it looked like the little yellow thing had broken something. Probably ruined something from the hotel room, or if he was really, really lucky, something from the Brat's ancestral home. A Ming Dynasty vase or something…

Touya made a face, rolling his eyes as he suddenly remembered that the Kaiju was vacationing in China. With the Brat. So many things wrong with that but there was nothing that he could do but wait until she returned home and give her hell for managing to convince their father that it was a great idea, spending her vacation with that kid.

Meeting the in-laws, as Tomoyo had teased and at which point, Touya remember, he had sputtered coffee all over their dinner table.

He had tried arguing with their father that Sakura was barely of legal age, having just turned sixteen, to have un-chaperoned vacations, especially with The Gaki.

"Her boyfriend of many, many years," his father corrected him

His point exactly! And did they really have to go to China? So far from home. So far from them – her family.

His father had bemusedly told him that he would have to learn how to let go. Sakura was growing up and very soon, she would be venturing out into the world on her own. It was inevitable.

Touya didn't think it was that inevitable.

"It's predestined." Yukito once told him, during one of the rare occasions that he had managed to rope him into talking about his Older Brother Psychosis (before it was just older-brother-complex)"Sakura-chan and Syaoran are predestined. Do you not believe in that, To-ya?"

Sure, he believed in it. Destiny, Fate, the stuff Kaho loved to think about and discuss with him. Things happen for a reason; nothing is just a matter of consequences. Believe in the future, hadn't Kaho told him that once?

But that didn't mean that he'd give up on his sister so quickly and without a fight. And fought he did, viciously too (and maybe a little childishly) considering the obnoxious Chinese brat was a worthy opponent.

"Give it up, Touya."His father had advised him when he sullenly informed Sakura that he was against whatever form of relationship – other than sworn enemies, that he'd approve of, most certainly! – that she'll have with the brat.

But Touya just couldn't. To him Sakura would always be the five year old girl, clutching his hand, smiling up at him in awe as he promised never to let her go.

A promise was a promise, after all, especially if made by an older brother.

He worried about his sister, constantly. Not because she wasn't a good person, prone to troublemaking. Trouble usually found her, which seemed highly unfair. Sakura had always been nice and sweet with an amazingly happy disposition in life.

Not that he would actually say those words out loud; there were facades to keep and roles to play. He was the annoyingly paranoid, over-protective big brother and she was his little kaiju. It was his role, therefore to terrorize any boy and or men who dared to take her away from him.

Touya wondered if and when the time comes for him to entrust Sakura to someone else, would he be able to do just that?

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As soon as the sun started to rise, Syaoran decided to try and look for their friends again. He wanted to find their friends and surprise Sakura. He wanted to see her face when she wakes up and finds Mokono hovering above her. Wanted to see her delighted laugh when she discovers that they were all together now, as they should be. He hadn't planned on venturing out so far from the temple, but he felt that he needed to put some sort of distance between him and Sakura. It was becoming more and more difficult to remind himself that he could never have the same closeness that they had before… it was a high price to pay but for Sakura, he would do everything, give up everything… he just needed…

Some air. Clear up his thoughts…

However else he put it, the distance from Sakura seemed almost compulsory and this made him feel confused. He wished there was an easier way to go on about finding Sakura's feather without having to feel so much, expect so much, hope for things to just magically change and one day, she'd just wake up and remember him. Remember them.

Sometimes he just didn't know how… how to teach his heart not to feel so cheated...

Taking a deep breath, Syaoran steeled himself from thinking of such thoughts. It wasn't as though Sakura had wanted this to happen… he had to be strong for the two of them. He had promised to find her feathers and he will find them, no matter what.

He shouldn't let himself feel this way, he reminded himself, or else Sakura would pick up on it and then she'd worry about him. About them. And the last thing he wanted was to cause some sort of discomfort for the princess. They had been in a situation like this before. They could handle this fine. He won't let anything happen to her. He had been successful with this vow so far. He wasn't going to let her and himself down.

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The silent house greeted them as he sat down for breakfast. Their father was out of town for the week, which left him to fend off for himself. He was used to it; he was an independent kid, as so many of his father's friends had commented about him. What he would never get used was this quietness.

The stillness of everything around reminded him of… something about the desert.

So eerily quite and desolate.

Without warning, fragments of his dream came back to him: wind, dust, wings, a night so black that light only came from a pink crescent moon, ruins buried on the sand….

What he could remember the most however was the feeling of helpless. Touya's jaw clenched. He wondered if the dream was, in some ways, prophetic.

But he was certain that Sakura wasn't in any sort of trouble. His powers had been slowly coming back, in small flashes, slowly but steadily building back up again, he could feel more, could sense more. And if anything should happen, he would know. Yue would know and would definitely find a way to inform him.

Besides, he had been constantly checking up on Sakura himself. Their daily calls were enough to reassure him that everything was ok.

"I don't think you miss me at all, 'ni-chan! You just want to annoy me!"

"Miss you? Kaiju, I'm merely calling to remind you that this is the 12th time that I had to do the dishes – on your behalf. At the rate things are going, as soon as you get home, you're going to do the dishes for the rest of your life!"

Plus, if the Kaiju ever got into trouble, the plushie toy was with her and so was the Gaki and the Gaki knows that if something happened to his sister while under his care, there would be lots of blood, and pain and broken bones – he made that perfectly clear the day they left for China. The Gaki had grumbling sworn on his own life and Touya was holding on to the Gaki's vow.

Even without the stuffed animal and the brat Touya knew that Sakura could handle anything that comes her way, whatever form of trouble it might be.

And Touya worried about her precisely because she was too good at dealing with her problems. He worried that someday, she won't need him anymore and that she'd eventually leave, go someplace where he could not follow her, protect her, make sure that she was ok.

One day, he'll wake up and she'd be gone.

The dream-feathers flashed inside his mind and following that image, was a vision of his Kaiju, sprouting white wings and quietly flying away.

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Author's note: Erm, well, the story is going quite slowly, but I promise something will have to happen soon. Eventually. About Touya knowing the whole Yue/Yukito, Kero, cards, etcthing, I've always felt that there'd come a time that Sakura would have to come clean and tell Touya everything, not that Touya needed to know, but it's Sakura and I fell that at some point, she'd realized that not telling her brother is almost like a betrayal of some sort. So let's just say that she'd already told Touya everything and Touya's response had been:

Touya blinked his eyes and then very slowly smirked. "Ne, Kaiju, you think I didn't know? Now, go wash the dishes."

But we all know that deep inside, Touya is thrilled and thankful that his sister trusted him with that secret!

Alright then, until the next update.

Many, many thanks for taking your time to read this and please do leave your comments and reviews. I really appreciate it.

PS: Wanted: Beta-reader.