Enlightenment
It was an unusually pleasant day. The weather was more or less perfect -
the sun shone brightly and only a few small puffy white clouds were to
be spotted in the sky. A cool yet gentle breeze swept through the small
city of Tomoeda. A small stuffed-animal-like creature sat on the ledge
of an open window and simply enjoyed the weather. Everything would have
been perfect if he had just had some vanilla ice cream, chocolate
cookies or... His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the sound
of the door to the small room slowly opening. The creature froze in a
well-versed pose, trying to look like a common stuffed animal, without
the abilities to talk and eat cookies, as much as possible. Turning
around to greet his mistress, or friend as she would rather put it, only
to find that it was actually her brother or father who had entered,
would not have been a good move. He nervously and quietly waited for a
"Hi Kero, I'm back!", but no greeting came. Whoever had entered had
closed the door and stayed there, for no sounds of footsteps were to be
heard. Painfully slowly, the small, orange seal guardian called
Kereberos, or simply Kero, turned his head towards the door. There stood
Sakura, dressed in her school uniform and with her bag hanging from her
arm, leaning against the closed door. The brown haired girl had her
emerald green eyes fixed on the floor, holding a clenched fist under her
chin. She was deeply lost in thoughts. Kero sighed.
- "Couldn't you at least have said hello? I was about to fall out from
the window because you suddenly opened the door and said nothing."
- "Wha...? Oh, Hi Kero. Sorry, I had my mind on things." she answered.
-"You don't have to worry though, father and brother never enters my
room without permission."
-"I know, but you never know with your brother... he keeps on giving me
these strange looks... I know I look cool and all but... anyway, you
look awfully distant today, did something happen at school today?"
She let out a small sigh, put her bag down on the chair by the desk and
tiredly sat down on her bed.
-"Not really... I'm thinking about what happened yesterday."
Yesterday had been a rather confusing day. Sakura had told the person
she thought she was in love with, her big brother’s best friend Yukito,
how she felt. His response had been that she probably only loved him
like a family member, and she had realized that there was quite a bit of
truth in that, although she was not completely sure of whether it had
been the whole truth or not. Furthermore, he had said that there was
actually someone else she was holding as her most beloved person, but
what had he meant by that? Was there someone else she truly loved?
Kero flew over to the desk opposite the bed and sat down with his legs
crossed, as if he was going to meditate over something.
-"Yesterday... You told that snow rabbit you like him, right?" he asked.
"Snow rabbit" was his nickname for Yukito, a play with words for the
characters used when writing his name. She blushed slightly and nodded.
-"Yes, but he said that we were like family, and that there was someone
else I really liked... like that."
With a serious expression on his face, he slowly nodded and said:
"...Right. And now you wonder who that might be?"
-"Yes!" she answered, in a higher voice than she had planned to.
He looked at her with disbelief.
-"You do realize that makes no sense at all, do you? You're in love with
someone, but you don’t know who."
-"It's not my fault! And I somehow both know and don’t know at the same
time..." she said sadly.
-"Hmm..." The seal beast put his hand under his chin, giving the
impression of thinking really hard. Sakura watched him hopefully as the
seconds flew by... Suddenly, he took his hand off his chin and put it
together with his other hand in his lap, looked straight into Sakura’s
eyes and honestly said:
-"I don't know. What's for dinner tonight?"
-"Kero!" she answered angrily. This was serious. No time for silly
jokes.
-"Well you do know you're in charge of dinner tonight I hope, I was
thinking..." Sakura’s angry stare suddenly had effect.
-"Well alright. There aren't that many candidates on you list over
people you really, really like, now are there? I'm not the one to tell
you who you love, you're supposed to figure that out on your own..." he
paused. "And my recommendation for tonight's dinner would be
okonomiyaki." he thoughtfully added. She ignored the last part and
looked down on the floor. He was right of course, she thought, but she
didn't say anything. The lack of a reply told Kero that she had agreed,
though reluctantly, and he smiled kindly at her.
-"So how 'bout some tea?" he said after a few seconds of silence. She
raised her head, gave him a smile and said:
-"Sure. Neither dad nor brother are home, would you...?"
He nodded and flew towards the door. "I wonder if there's any cake left
in the fridge..." he thought to himself as he hugged the door handle
with his whole upper body, opening the door with slight difficulty.
-"You know where the cups and the tray is right?"
-"Don't worry!" she heard him shout on his way down the stairs. She
sighed. She needed some time to think for herself, and he knew that.
That was why he had offered to make some tea. "He's actually rather wise
for a plush toy who seems to only care about eating sweets." she thought
to herself and smiled. She closed her eyes and whispered: "Thank you,
Kero..."
Time to get serious and get some thinking done. It could not be that
difficult. Apart from Yukito and her family, there was only one person
she could use the word "love" to describe her feelings towards. Her best
friend, Tomoyo. But was her love towards Tomoyo really that kind of
love? It was not, and realizing this actually surprised Sakura a bit,
the fact that Tomoyo was a girl that was the problem, or even a problem;
it was that the feeling she had when she was with Tomoyo was quite a lot
different from the feeling she had when she was with, or even just saw
Yukito. Yukito had made her heart race, and her whole body to go all, to
put it in her own words, "hanya~n!", which, despite the fact that it
might not sound all that good in written form, really was a nice
feeling. Tomoyo, on the other hand, had a very different effect on her,
making her feel safe, calm and just overall happy. Being with Tomoyo was
not like a roller coaster, but more like one of those moments when you
feel that everything, for the moment, is perfect, and you feel like if
you could stay like that forever, you would. Sakura took both her hands
and put them on her chest, over her heart, and closed her eyes, as if
she was trying to listen to whatever her heart was going to tell her.
She tried to remember the feeling of Tomoyo’s presence, and began with
picturing her in her mind. Her gentle blue eyes, her long, beautiful
hair, the way she smiled, and the soft and calming touch of her hands
from when they would hold hands or when she would help Sakura with her
hair. The thought of Tomoyo gently caressing her hair made her blush,
and she felt a slight tickling sensation in her stomach. Filling her
head with thoughts of Tomoyo, she tried to simulate the feeling of her
best friends presence. It was actually rather easy. The more memories
and images she brought forth, the stronger the feeling became. She
remembered Tomoyo as she was sitting next to Sakura in class, always
with a content smile on her lips no matter what boring subject they were
studying. She remembered her happily running around with her camera in
her hand, filming Sakura doing... just about anything, from capturing
clow cards to putting on her roller blades. She remembered Tomoyo's
wonderful singing ability, and especially the time when she sang in
front of the whole school, but had said that she especially had
dedicated the song to Sakura - a beautiful song about friendship. That
song had really touched her heart. And now she felt that, this was
indeed the feeling Tomoyo always gave her. Calmness, the feeling of
being safe, a feeling that said that everything would certainly be
alright. It was that feeling that had made it possible for her to
capture all the clow cards, and the source of that feeling, and
ultimately in the center of her life - was Tomoyo. However, there was
also something more, a new feeling that she had only sensed distantly
before; a sort of gentle, sweet, tickling feeling in her stomach, as if
a few tiny butterflies were fluttering about. How come she had never
noticed that before? It was unmistakably love - but not the usual kind
of love for a friend - deep, true love. Finally understanding this did
not really shock or scare her, because it was as if she had always knew,
deep down. And it certainly explained why she had been reluctant to tell
Tomoyo about this matter when her friend had been worried about Sakura's
rather odd behavior earlier the same day. "I must tell her... how I
really feel. But how will..." her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by
Kero's voice:
-"Hey, open the door will ya!"
-"Ah! I'll be right there!" she said and rushed up to the door, opened
it and let the little creature in. He was carrying a wooden tray with
two cups of hot green tea on top of his head, keeping the balance with
his short arms. He flew over to the desk and stared at it blankly.
-"Err..." he said. He was unable to put the tray down without taking
great risks spilling the tea out.
-"I'll get it." Sakura took the tray and put it down on the desk. Both
of them took a cup and sat down. Kero took a sip of the tea and studied
her face silently. She was just about to say "What?" when he, at last,
said:
-"So you figured it out."
-"How did you know?" she asked him, surprised. He grinned teasingly at
her.
-"You're still blushing." This comment made her blush even more, and she
angrily closed her eyes. After seriously balancing the pros and cons of
throwing her cup of tea at him, she decided not to, and said:
-"I must tell her." She looked very closely at Kero’s reaction to the
word "her", expecting him to be caught off guard. But he just took
another sip of his tea and answered:
-"Sure."
-"You knew all along?" she said, rather disappointed of his casual
response.
-"Nah, but I sorta figured." he said. She sighed. "I must tell her...
but how will she react?"
The girl let out a small cry of delight. "It is done!" she said out
loudly, even though she was alone in the room, which was pitch dark
apart from the very well lit spot around the sofa where she sat,
surrounded by various fabrics and sewing tools. She was holding up a
just recently finished costume in front of her, inspecting it with
twinkling eyes. "Sakura will look so cute in this!" she thought to
herself and sighed happily. "Although, I am really happy she changed the
Fly card like she did. I really wanted big wings for this one, but that
would have added at least another week of work." It was an angel
costume, complete with a glowing halo and on the back was two rather
small, but cute, foldable wings. Even though Tomoyo thought that Sakura
looked like an angel even without a costume, this would set off her
angelic appearance even more. "I just hope she will be pleased with this
design... Perhaps I should invite her over to try it on tomorrow.
Hopefully, that will cheer her up a little." Sakura had been acting a
bit strange earlier that day. She had not been as energetic and happy as
she usually was, and she had seemed rather distant, as if she had been
pondering something. She had been walking quietly with an absent
expression on her face almost the whole way on their walk home from
school, and because of this, she had almost walked straight into a
lamppost. Tomoyo had managed to warn her right on time, but when she had
asked her best friend about what was wrong, she had simply laughed a
little, embarrassed, and assured her that it "was nothing, or that she
was worried about the math test the next day." The lie had been very
obvious, not only because of the hesitation, but also because the math
test the next day would not be very difficult, or important. Tomoyo knew
that Sakura did not like math very much, but there was no way her friend
could be that upset over a simple math test. Tomoyo was very concerned
about Sakura's problem, but she did not want to seem too pushy, and she
was convinced that Sakura would share her problem whenever she felt
ready. She had a pretty good idea of what was going on anyway; it quite
clearly had something to do with Yukito and Sakura's crush on him. What
confused her though was that Sakura did not want to talk about it with
her. "Sakura knows she can talk to me about anything, so why..." Of
course, thinking like this would lead nowhere. She just had to have
faith in her friend. But she still could not stop worrying. Sakura was
the most important person in her life, after all. She had loved her like
this for a couple of years now, but she had not really told her yet
because she already knew Sakura did not have the same kind of feelings
for her. Although she really wanted to tell her, and was determined to
do so someday, she had come to the conclusion that there was no need to
tell her now, as it only would confuse Sakura and disturb their
friendship which they both appreciated so much. It would not destroy
their friendship, she knew Sakura better than that, but it would make it
a little awkward. Perhaps Sakura would even feel obligated to love
Tomoyo back, but that would not be real love, and nothing Tomoyo neither
wanted or needed. She was content and happy as long as Sakura was happy,
and she did not need Sakura to love her back, even if it would really be
wonderful if she would. Tomoyo turned her head to look at the alarm
clock on her bed stand. It was rather late, but she still had time to
rehearse a little for the math test. She considered calling Sakura to
tell her how she was worried about her, but decided that it could
probably wait to the next day. They could have a long talk in person and
sort it all out then, if Sakura wanted. She had no idea how right she
was.
Sakura was the one to arrive first to the classroom the next morning.
After closing the sliding door, she went straight up the desk next to
her own, the desk belonging to her best friend... and her true love? She
sighed a troubled sigh and sat down at her own desk, staring out of the
window, pondering about how, when and where to tell Tomoyo about her
feelings. Her heart jumped as she heard the sound of a door slide open,
and she quickly turned her head towards it, expecting Tomoyo to be
standing there. But it was not Tomoyo, but another girl from their
class.
-"Morning!" the girl said cheerfully.
-"Morning..." Sakura replied, sounding very much as if she was trying to
sound cheerful, but not really succeeding. She continued to stare out of
the window. Each time the door slid open, Sakura’s heart jumped and she
spun around to see who had arrived. After repeating this eight times,
and Tomoyo had not stepped in through the door any of them, Sakura
decided her heart had had enough exercise that morning, and tried to
ignore the door. It worked unexpectedly well, and a few minutes flew by,
when suddenly she heard a sweet and familiar voice coming from right
behind her.
-"Good Morning, Sakura."
This time, Sakura's heart did not simply jump a little. It took a giant
leap, partly due to her surprise, and partly because she recognized the
voice. It felt in fact, as if her heart had jumped a little too far and
got stuck in her throat, because she was quite unable to speak. She
looked into Tomoyo’s big beautiful blue eyes and quickly recovered. She
blushed, looked down on her desk and stuttered:
-"M... Morning."
Tomoyo smiled her usual smile and started to pick up things from her
backpack. "Puh, she didn’t seem to notice how nervous I am..." Sakura
thought to herself. But oh how wrong she was.
Tomoyo was speechless. She tried to look occupied with picking up books
from her backpack as she thought of what to say next. She had a
mysterious ability to understand exactly what other people thought and
felt, usually only by looking at them. It was like her own sort of
magic. She had expected Sakura to either act distant, almost depressed,
like yesterday, or for her to be back to her old happy and energetic
self. But Sakura had not acted like that at all. "She sounded excited
and nervous... And I get the feeling of her wanting to tell me something
important..." Tomoyo thought to herself. Sakura had never been nervous
like that around her before, and this led to the rise of a suspicion, or
a hope in this case, about what it was that Sakura wanted to tell her.
It was the kind of suspicion you wanted to be able to confirm or dismiss
as soon as possible. She put the last book on the desk, sat down, and
turned to Sakura.
-"What is the matter, Sakura? You are not yourself." Tomoyo said with
worry in her voice.
-"It's... I..." she was caught off guard and was not sure of how to
reply. Part of wanted her to stand up and scream "I love you!" and get
it over with, but the other part knew that this was not the right time,
or place. Without really thinking, she used the same excuse as she had
used the earlier day.
-"It's about the math test!" she said, a little too high and a little
too fast. A moment of silence.
-"HOEEE!" Sakura suddenly screamed and stood up. The math test. She had
completely forgotten. Tomoyo stared confused at her. Sakura sank down on
her desk.
-"I forgot we had a math test..." she explained in a tired voice. Tomoyo
looked even more confused.
-"But..." she began, but was interrupted by Sakura.
-"I'm sorry Tomoyo, it's just that I... I..." The door slid open and the
classroom was suddenly very quiet. Their teacher had arrived.
-"I'll tell you after class." Sakura whispered, sounding rather
relieved. Tomoyo nodded, looking rather disappointed.
Sakura leaned back against her chair and stretched her arms. Class was
over, and the tests had been handed in. It had been very difficult,
partly because math was not exactly her favorite subject, partly because
she had not studied anything for it the other day, and partly because
she had had problems concentrating on the test itself. Her mind had been
occupied with thoughts of Tomoyo and what she had to tell her when the
test was over.
-"How did you do?" Tomoyo asked.
-"I think I managed somehow." Sakura answered with a tired sigh.
-"What was it that you wanted to tell me before?" Tomoyo asked, trying
to sound worried, but with excitement and tenseness in her voice. Sakura
did not notice this, however.
-"Let's go outside." she replied, suddenly sounding serious and
determined.
They went to the park behind the school. It was a sunny day, and it
would have been really hot too if it were not for the cool wind that
gently blew. Sakura looked at Tomoyo who was walking next to her and saw
how Tomoyo’s long blue/gray hair graciously flew behind her as an effect
of the rather strong wind. "She's so beautiful..." Sakura thought
dreamily. Tomoyo noticed how Sakura was looking at her and smiled at
her. Sakura looked down on the ground and blushed. They arrived at a
bench under a huge cherry tree. Tomoyo sat down on the bench, but Sakura
stopped and stood a bit in front of her. Tomoyo looked at her with an
expression that said: "Please tell me what it was you wanted to say."
Sakura closed her eyes and inhaled.
-"It's... I... Yesterday..." she began.
"There’s no need for the whole explanation now, just get to the point,
Sakura!" she thought to herself. She made a pause and inhaled again.
Tomoyo watched her eagerly, knowing where this was going.
-"I... I love you!" Sakura said and opened her eyes to see Tomoyo’s
reaction.
She expected shock, confusion or something along those lines, but Tomoyo
just looked happy, very, very happy. Tomoyo stood up, feeling like she
could fly.
-"I love you too, Sakura!" she said.
It had been too easy, Tomoyo must have misunderstood. She was not
talking about love between friends, not even between best friends, she
was talking about that kind of love.
-"No Tomoyo, I mean..." but she could not say anything more, because her
lips would not move. She felt a warm hand on her right cheek, and her
lips would not move because they were pressed against Tomoyo's. She had
leaned forward and given her a kiss. It was over before Sakura could
really make an effort to kiss back, but it still left her blushing
furiously.
-"I love you too." Tomoyo said again. Sakura did not know what to say,
so she did not say anything. She simply threw herself into Tomoyo's
arms, relived, excited and very happy. Feelings were rushing through
them both like spring floods, suddenly let free. They stood there,
holding each other for what seemed like an eternity. I good, warm and
love-filled eternity. When they finally let go, they looked lovingly at
each other and kissed again, and this time, both were in on it. They
smiled a little embarrassed at each other and hand in hand, they
returned to class. They did not say anything, because there was no need
to say anything more. They had finally really found each other.
The end. (Or; and they lived happily ever after.)
Extra scene: (Just for fun)
School was over and the two girls were walking home hand in hand in the
bright and warm sunshine. Suddenly, the girl with the long blue/gray
hair stopped and looked the person she loved the most in the eyes with a
serious expression on her face.
-"Sakura, I have a question. I was really happy when you told me you
loved me, but... what about Li?"
Sakura looked confused.
-"Syaoran?" Then she shone up. "Oh, don't worry about Syaoran, he's not
even in this story!"
-"Oh, then it is all good." Tomoyo smiled a relieved smile at Sakura,
who answered by giving her a kiss on her cheek.
-"And even if he was, you know I would have chosen you anyway."
Author's notes:
Yes, I ignored Syaoran's existence altogether. He would only have
complicated things, so sue me. Anyway, this was my first fanfic ever. I
don't usually write stuff like this, especially not in English, so there
are my excuses if you didn't like it. Complains, praise and hate mail
are to be sent. Thank you for reading.
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