Card Captor Sakura Fan Fiction ❯ Wish Unbroken, Dream Unspoken ❯ Chapter 10

Wish Unspoken, Dream Unbroken

Ten

Sakura's shout was backed up with great power, blasting her brother and her guardian apart. Panic held her together long enough to see them both fall to the floor, and she prayed that what she feared would not come to pass. When she had opened the door--

She shuddered, recalling what she had seen. Yukito had held Touya closely, almost shoving the magic into her brother, and as the magic traveled between them she could see Yukito fading away, becoming a faint outline of himself.

Sakura now fell to her knees, weakened by the drain in her own energy. She tried to stand again, needing to see if she succeeded in saving Yukito's life, but darkness began to close in around her and a strange buzzing sound made the world seem even more distant. She fought her way to her feet, barely, only to crumple toward the floor again.

Arms caught her, warm and safe and familiar, and as she Eriol's kind and wise eyes she let the darkness claim her, trusting him to do whatever he could.

Touya woke with a pounding headache and some undefined terror lurking in the back of his mind. He found himself in bed, feeling jumpy and wired, but wiped out and exhausted at the same time. He needed to get out of bed and do something, but he didn't want to move. He let out a low moan as he found himself sitting up almost against his will. His head protested the motion by sending a sharp ache from the base of his skull to the backs of his eyes.

"Lay back down, you're not ready to get up yet."

Touya found himself doing what he was told. "What are you doing here, Hiiragizawa-san?" His voice was weak and gravely, sounding strange to his own ears. "What happened?"

Eriol placed a cool washcloth on Touya's forehead, expression carefully neutral. "I wanted to make sure you'd be okay," he said softly.

The cloth eased some of the pain, but the jitters were more intense. He found himself tapping his fingers rapidly in patterns he recognized from the piano lessons he had taken so long ago from his mother. He resisted the urge to start tapping out one of the songs she had taught him, but he needed to do something.

"I can't lay here anymore. I don't care how much my head hurts, I can't lay still."

Eriol just nodded. "You'll probably have insomnia for a while, but you'll adjust to it again before you know it."

"Wait, wait, adjust to what? What happened?"

He looked concerned, searching Touya's eyes for--something... "You don't remember any of it?"

Touya blinked in confusion, trying to figure out what Eriol could possibly be talking about and why someone like him would be showing such concern. It rushed back to him in a blinding flash and Eriol just nodded and turned away. So that was the jittery feeling...magic coursing through his body once again. But, with that thought came another.

"Yuki--Yue...is he...are they--?"

"Alive, but only just. Yukito didn't just return what you had given. He was trying to commit suicide. I'm sorry."

The headache and weariness didn't matter anymore. Touya sat up and almost jumped out of bed. "Where is he?"

"He's not awake yet. You still need to rest more, so please lay back down."

"I need to see him!"

"What would you say to him, if he were awake right now?"

"I don't know, I just know that I need to say something. I can't believe he would do this! What was he thinking? Why would he--?"

Eriol cut him off with a nod. "It might be better if you give him some time to sort that out himself before you go and demand answers. That's not the only reason I want to hold you back though. I want to apologize for all of this. It wasn't supposed to be this way."

Touya stared at the younger seeming boy still seated next to the bed. He was looking downcast, staring at the floor with a rare frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. Touya put a reassuring hand on Eriol's shoulder, smiling slightly when the young mage looked up. "I would never think that you wanted this outcome. Otherwise I wouldn't have punched you, I'd have tried to kill you."

They both chuckled despite the truth in the words...or perhaps because of it.

It was night when Yukito finally opened his eyes. The darkness was so beautifully welcome, giving him a brief glimmer of hope that he had succeeded, but the pain and weariness he felt all over disabused him of that idea. He had somehow survived. Tears slowly slid down his face as realization hit him. His hell was far from finished.

In fact, it was probably just beginning.

He sighed heavily, rolling from his back to his side and curling into a ball of misery. He heard soft movement in the room just before a light flared to life. He blinked a few times, adjusting to the change before he saw a rare somber expression on his former classmate and thorn in his side, Nakuru. She walked over with a concerned expression, a damp washcloth, and a glass of water.

He looked over at her bitterly, frowning with heartbreaking sadness. "I don't need those," he said softly.

Nakuru just nodded, placing the items on the bedside table. "You almost killed yourself," she admonished gently, shaking her head as if talking to a wayward child.

Yukito just looked at her coldly. "I thought you wouldn't care."

Her mouth formed a perfect pout before she replied. "You almost killed Touya."

"Ah, of course. Your true motivation comes out." The words were biting, but there was no energy or emotion behind it.

"You're going to pretend that it doesn't hurt you? Fine, pretend all you like, but you almost killed your mistress as well." This time her voice was cold, almost taunting.

It felt like a knife had been slipped between his ribs. "Sakura! Why? I thought I had--"

"Oh, all the thinking like that won't do you a bit of good. You found a spell and thought to toy with it and didn't think of the consequences at all. You just thought of your own selfish ends. You didn't care that you could have died, or that Yue could have died, or anyone else, all you thought of was that stupid guilt you have about Touya. Honestly, why did you accept his magic in the first place if you were going to regret it so much?"

"That's not what this is about," Yukito said softly, hiding his face in his hands, hoping to shut her out somehow.

"Let me tell you now that there are easier ways for a magical being to commit suicide without risking anyone else."

"How was I supposed to know?"

She sighed, looking at him with a frown. "If you were looking for suicide, you would have found those spells yourself. You were looking for absolution. Or, were you looking for revenge?"

Yukito sat up with a gasp, staring at her with shock and anguish. "Revenge? Touya is my best friend. You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Such an energetic denial. I wonder...did I strike a nerve?"

"Impossible," he stated, glaring.

"Well, let's see. I have a suspicion that may be way off base here, but sometimes it seemed to me that you had a crush on him. I may be wrong, but I was always worried about failing my mission because the two of you acted like more than friends."

Yukito bowed his head, violet eyes falling upon the blanket, tracing the lines of the folds while he tried not to answer. He finally sighed and shrugged. "You are not wrong," he admitted. "I had a crush on my best friend."

"Interesting way of phrasing that...but that's not important. Not now at least. I've never been accused of being able to read people well, or understand hidden motivations, but as one moon guardian to another I have some ideas." She grinned wildly, enjoying her words way too much.

Yukito shrugged hopelessly. "Say what you think, but you're wrong. I don't know how you could think I'd want revenge against Touya for saving my life."

"But he didn't save your life. He saved Yue, right? He didn't even ask you. He didn't talk to you about it. He just did what he wanted, and put you in a debt you could never repay. You were in such a huge debt that you could never approach him as an equal again, so you couldn't admit your feelings for him. And then--he kissed Yue. You discovered that he had feelings for you, but not the part of you that you wanted. So you felt even more unworthy."

"Stop it," Yukito whispered.

She went on. "You always acted so selfless when I knew you before...always smiling even when I was really mean to you, so I would guess that you smiled at Touya and tried to make him happy...maybe by telling him you approved of that even though it actually hurt you. That would be just like you. Maybe you told yourself that it would be okay because at least it was part of you...the better part of you...the part that's actually worth something?

"But, I watched Touya very carefully. He wouldn't be happy with that, so he would have tried to make you happy. Of course, neither of you would have actually bothered talking about it. You are all about masks, and he is all about stoic silence, and neither of you would resolve anything. So it just got worse and worse until my master decided you needed help. Only...he has a fatal weakness. He doesn't see matters of the heart clearly, and he made a mistake. He thought you still love Touya, but you don't. You can't. You hate yourself too much to love anyone else."

"Stop it! You're wrong!" He clapped his hands over his mouth at his shouted words. He never yelled. He had never yelled out of anger as long as he could remember. Something about those words had brought him to a point he never thought he could have reached though.

Nakuru just nodded, acting as if she had expected his response. "You're probably right. I don't know much about people. It was all a stab in the dark. I'll go tell Eriol that he can tell Touya his idea was wrong. Touya will probably be happy to know that you don't actually hate him." She smiled, standing.

Horror crossed Yukito's face, filling his being with dread. "He thinks that? Those were his words, not yours?"

She stood by the door for a moment, hesitating with one hand on the doorknob and the other at her chin, one finger tapping against her lips in thought. "I overheard them talking earlier. That's not exactly what they said, but I never would have thought of any of those things on my own, to tell you the truth. It seems you're an amazingly complex being, Tsukishiro Yukito. I hope I never become like you." Her grin became cruel and mocking, then she left.

Yukito stared at the closed door for a long time. His mind refused to process the words she had said, refused to accept or reject any of it. He simply stared. For a moment he wondered again if Touya thought those things of him or if it was a trick. What was the point? What was the point in any of it? Why the switch in the first place?

He frowned, eyes falling downward to the immaculate white robes and long plaited hair he had almost grown used to. This form had caused him trouble at first, but he had quickly become accustomed to it. It was him after all, just not a part of himself that he remembered. Even the magic came naturally to him now, though he still hadn't found all the spells Yue knew. There were centuries of memories in the other's mind after all. It was too much to sift through in a mere week.

Most of what he had seen in memories was that Yukito made Yue sad and isolated. Things hadn't been like this with Clow Reed. He had taken it personally, thinking that the terrible depression weighing on Yue's soul had to be the fault of having a willful false form with a heart of his own. It was so easy to blame himself when he saw Yue grow happier as he spent more and more time with Touya and the other delights of the world.

"I don't know the answers anymore," he whispered aloud. "I thought I knew, but maybe I was wrong. I don't know anything anymore, especially about myself. What do I do now?"

There was no answer of course. He was alone. Really and truly alone. He finally looked around at where he was, what room he was in. The bed was larger than Touya's or Sakura's, and toward the foot of the bed was an old organ. He recalled Touya telling him about his mother and how she had taught him to play. This was their father's room then. The room was neat, like the rest of the house. Decorations were sparse, but it still looked like a person lived there--not like Yukito's house.

He frowned, banishing that thought. He'd been adding things slowly since he had found out the truth, and slowly his house was looking more like a home. There were gifts and pictures placed in spots he liked to look, reminders that he was a person even if he was not human.

This room though...it didn't have to have mementos to look lived in. In fact, the only things that made the room more than a generic bedroom were the organ--and a photograph that rested on the bedside table. Yukito reached over to pick it up, looking at an image that was a familiar addition to the Kinomoto household. There were pictures like this one everywhere. A smiling young woman of about twenty looked toward the camera with obvious joy. She was always perfectly presented with her soft, wavy hair framing a delicate face. She always smiled as if there was nothing to worry about in the world.

He had heard the stories though. Her family had disowned her for marrying beneath her. She had lost her home, her family, her everything, just to be with the man she loved...and that was why she looked happy. Love had been enough. Love had overcome all obstacles. Even when she had been dying, he was told, she had smiled every painful day just because she had the ones she loved.

Love.

Life is too short, too precious. Yukito had selfishly withheld that happiness from himself and from Touya...and for the reasons Nakuru had said. He felt unworthy.

If Kinomoto-sensei had let such feelings come between himself and Nadeshiko, they would have both been miserable. There would be no Touya. There would be no Sakura. Nadeshiko would have had her perfect family and been forced into a loveless marriage more befitting her station in life, but she would not have had all those smiles she shared so generously with the camera.

"But it's too late to set things right now," he protested toward the photograph. "I messed everything up. I hurt everyone, and Touya probably hates me now. He probably will never speak to me again."

Despite his protests, Nadeshiko still smiled.