True Love Waits (in itsy bitsy pieces) (part 3 of 6)

a Card Captor Sakura fanfiction by Ms. Kanzaki

Back to Part 2
It was nothing AND everything at the same time.

The scene that just played. That she just described in her most detailed 
fashion.

For a moment, the skies were clearer. Yet darkness always finds a way to 
return, goes an old saying.

He couldn't stop thinking about it too. That and what she just told him.

He hadn't counted on this visit, even if he extended every courtesy 
known to his guest.

- You're- you're doing this out of love, aren't you???

She normally wouldn't have anything to say if the young man in front of 
her, and so like Sakura in many ways!, sounded stern and almost 
accusatory about her feelings. Even though, she stood her ground.

- I'm not here to enumerate your duties as a man in love, Li. Help her 
find Yume, and please, please tell her about the dream you had back when 
we were children.

Next, the same pair of small yet softly colored lips that spoke these 
words were sipping the cup of tea he poured prior to the odd 
conversation.

- How did you know I hadn't told her about the incident at the movie 
theater?

(How did she know about the dream at all?!)

Li Syaoran, the heir to the banking and cultural estate of one of the 
most powerful families in all of China, still found himself amazed at 
the intuitive? or observatory ? powers of the porcelained girl.

She only grinned.

How did you?, he repeated.

She glanced at him over the edge of her tea cup.

- You're so much like her, Li-kun- telling a friend but never the one 
you love about personal matters... I understand, you'd rather alarm 
anybody else than her, like she'd prefer not causing you any 
inconvenience.

The tea cup was then on the table. Daidouji Tomoyo stood from the chair 
and bowed.

- The tea was magnificent. Give my compliments to Wei-san.

He shook his head.

- It wasn't Wei-

- It was MEEEE!!!!!!!

And out stepped from the kitchen a formidable looking girl. The odango 
styled raven hair was unmistakably only one person.

Tomoyo acknowledged her presence. She paused on her way out, but only to 
unwrap a candy she had in her blazer's pocket, and ultimately reassumed 
her march.

Thump. The door closed with a steady sound. But both of the cousins just 
stared in its direction.

- What was up with her, Syaoran? She didn't even stop to say hello...

The brown haired and eyed boy just once glanced back at his cousin Li 
MeiLing. He drew a bit of air to say something, but looked again at the 
door and finally kept to a desk which he approached.

Leaning on it, he answered as if only to himself and a higher power:

- All I can tell you, MeiLing, is that...

She looked at him with that piercing glare of her red eyes.

- What?

I just nodded. My hand gestured my dismissal of the subject.

It seems true: ... And True Love Wins.... 

... On lollipops and crisps...

-----------

parenthesis : Daidouji Tomoyo & Sonomi

It was perfectly logical.

He dreamed about her too back when we first stumbled unto Yume.

I knew it by the way he acted around her. The averting eyes, the sudden 
blushes that invaded his cheeks. I shied a bit too when it happened. He, 
as well as I, had realized that day that he'd fallen under the spell of 
our lovely mage friend.

But my heaven/plight had started way before the Clow cards were released 
back onto the world accidently by my curious Sakura-chan. I can 
perfectly recall my vision the first time I saw her, right there in the 
classroom numbered "3-1". Even with no absolute knowledge of who she was 
and what she'd be, I was hit with a vision of her cladded in fantastic 
suits, wielding a magical scepter and some cards as to perform a spell. 

Next thing I was conscious of is when she took seat right next to my 
desk, and I found so hard the rest of the day, and everyday since, to 
keep my eyes off her...

Tomoyo decided to well better concentrate on the present. The whole 
dream matter has abruptly transformed from a heavenly refuge to a 
worrisome deceivement. A heavy burden not only for the Card Mistress.

- Whew! This is the second suitcase I pack and I'm STILL not done!!

- What surprises me,- replied an observant mother of this girl genius- 
is that you're not loading up your tapes or your so cherised designs. 
Otherwise, we'd probably had to reserve an entire plane to take all 
what's in your room!

Daidouji Sonomi, a still attractive businesswoman and full-time 
worshiper of her late cousin Nadeshiko, walked quietly from under the 
door and leaned inside her daughter's wardrobe to help her.

- I look at you right now, Tomoyo-chan, and it finally hits me that 
you've gone a long way from the newborn child I cherised immediately.

She kept passing to her rather quiet daughter the boxes previously 
packed two weeks ago.

- You truly do resemble my dear Nadeshiko, and that fact makes it more 
difficult to accept you're leaving.

The younger Daidouji braked to a halt from her chaotic thinking and 
doing. She now stared with intense -if it could ever be- blue in her 
eyes, and a deep understanding smile drawn across her face.

- Okasa-san, does this all too remind you of when Nadeshiko-san left 
grandfather's house?

Her eyes welled up with tears, but not one escaped their concealment 
space.

-  Yes. That was when I knew it was the beginning of the end. The end of 
whatever my hope had created, conjured in dreams.

I left my boxes and stepped onto my mother's side. I took her hand just 
like she did when I was a child.

- My departure's not for eternity. I'll return in vacation time. 
Besides, I could never be apart from my family so long!

I held her hand more tightly, if still in a gentle manner. When our eyes 
met again, mine also did the trademark Daidouji 
hold-as-long-as-possible-those-tears look. 

I kept thinking that in less than two weeks I'll be more capable of 
keeping my pledge to never tell Sakura-chan my feelings, or that dream, 
and others.

Never tell her how she changed my world since that fatefull eraser 
incident.

Never tell her that in every costume I designed each inch of fabric, of 
thread, was a confirmation of my love for her.

Never tell her that I doubt I could possibly survive without her. That 
I, nor she, should ever leave each other's side.

... Just...

... Don't leave...

... Don't leave...

Perhaps, like her daughter, Sonomi was also tempted to murmur such words 
as she watched a couple of butterflies leave the tree next to the 
window.

------------

parenthesis 2 : Guardian Kerberos & Card Mistress Sakura

For once, I'd love everything to be easy.

Right now, I'd like that to happen with this stubborn bottle so I can 
drink my soda!!

Just hear me- my life basicly revolves 'round all the gaming consoles 
I've made Sakura-san buy through the years, food...

(... like this stupid soda that won't budge!!)

... ah!!! The cards and the Book. Guarding them. Guarding the Mistress, 
too.

FIZZ!!! Great!! About time this thing finally opened!!! And just as I 
give the cap a final twist...

POP!!! 

OOOWWWWW!!!!! KERO!!!!!!!!

Well, so much for keeping her out of danger!

There she is- rubbing the spot on her head in which the bottle cap 
landed. She winced for a few moments before turning back at me and 
changing her pained expression to an angry one, accompanied with all and 
a raised fist.

Think, think quick, Kerberos... Yay!! I got it!!!

- Errr... Sakura, have you already found the missing card???

Whew!!!! Thank the Gods she froze and put down that knuckle sandwich she 
was readying to serve me!!!!!

My auburn haired Card Mistress half-closed her eyes and sighed noisily.

- Ie, Kero-chan, nothing so far...

She finished the phrase with a total slump to the ground. Kero returned 
to gulp a bit of his soft drink, and after a few minutes he turned his 
kitten-like face back to her. He also sighed, hardly audible anyway, and 
flew to her side with his bottle.

He offered shyly:

- Wanna sip of this?? It's a good tasting cola.

It's heart-warming to watch a smile go up her face. She takes the soda 
and gives if just a small gulp -a rather audible one-.

Now, I approach her, and pat her fuzzy looking head.

Her eyes express something more troubling then the loss of a card or of 
sleep (yep, I HAVE noticed she hasn't slept enough these days, aside 
from hearing her troubled murmurs while she got a few moments' rest). 
She stares at me so directly I feel it hurts a bit. Like watching a 
beautiful flower wither to nothing.

- Kero, did you-

- What do you want to ask me??

I realized his face was not at all with a puzzled expression. Perhaps he 
knew then what I wanted to enquire.

- Did you... did you know that Tomoyo-chan's leaving in a week???

Pure pained speech. No anger nor bitter surprise. Pure Sadness, from the 
purest human I've known.

My answer was simplicity in its own purity as well.

- Yes. You found out from someone who wasn't Tomoyo, huh????

If my answer was simple, her nod was the esense of the word.

- Who- How... did it happen?????

It was all too well clear for me that I shouldn't start by asking who, 
but rather by knowing the circumstances. And then her story would unfold 
like an instrument gently playing, exploring the harmony it makes while 
tripping with obstacles in the air.

She started, with half a studder, and then with the pour-out of words...

----------------------

- What exactly did that mean?

- Huh?? What are you talking about???

She once again took a bite out of the butter cookies she bought, and had 
another gulp of her lukewarm tea. If anyone could say that knew him the 
best, that would be her; though, with what she'd just witnessed, she 
wasn't now so sure. Certainly not sure enough to blindly accept the most 
absurd wish of his!

Sighing in defeat. She perfectly realizes now that I'll tell her 
everything. But first, I must walk over to the balcony of my apartment, 
and watch the fascinating yet still foreign sunset over the waters of 
the Yokohama bay. It'll only take me a few minutes, she accepts this too 
patiently.

- You're thinking about the bay back home, aren't you?

 I sigh again. Mind you, not in defeat. 

She has slowly paced to where I am, and has put her soft hand over my 
rough shoulder.

- MeiLing, I-

- Don't say a thing, Syaoran. I understand what's going on... I mean, it 
must be hard to leave all of this behind suddenly...

I squeeze her hand in mine. Gently. I'm still looking at the fugitive 
sun, and smile.

- Lets not talk about that right now. Here, won't you step outside and 
watch with me like in Hong Kong this wonderful site?

I scurry aside from the center of the balcony, and she reluctantly goes 
to my side. A tint of red, so similar to her eyes, goes up her cheeks.

- Alright. I also happen to love it too, you know... In fact,- she adds 
facing me - it's a dream I had just a few days ago... watching a sunset 
with you, enjoying the silence...

- And???- I glance to where she is, taking note that her dream so far is 
so alike mine, that one of childhood with Sakura. It meant love.

She draws close to me, this time squeezing my hand in hers. A blush is 
evident even in the color of her earlobes.

- ... the ocean behind us... and... an embrace. It meant love... still 
does.

I understand what she says. She's saying that...

- MeiLing... back when we captured the Dream card... you-you...

She lets go of my hand. An all-knowing smirk drew on her pretty face.

- Yes, Syaoran. I, like Kinomoto-san, Daidouji-san, AND you, had a 
vision given by Yume.

Onwards to Part 4


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