storypaint | Time Heals All Wounds (Fujitaka/Nadeshiko) *repost*

Title: Time Heals All Wounds
Author: rhap_chan
Pairing: Kinomoto (formerly Amamiya) Nadeshiko and Kinomoto Fujitaka
Theme: #4, Literary Devices (Figures of Speech)
Genre: introspective angst
Rating: PG at most
Disclaimer: Cardcaptor Sakura belongs to CLAMP. This fanfic is a derivative of canon material that is not my property. I do not profit from these writings. The opinions and actions expressed in these stories are not necessarily the views and beliefs of the original author or me.
Note: Using ^ to signify author's note.

Excerpt: There it was, her handwriting--he'd missed it, he realized with a pang, just like he missed everything about her since she left.

He was cleaning out the basement when he found the book. He had been going quite carefully since Sakura had told him that it was in the basement where she had found the Clow book. Hiiragizawa-oniisan (his quiet name for the boy, because even with only one meeting they would always been intwined like brothers) had never mentioned anything about a second book, but that would be just like his quiet counterpart. So he was taking down each book and attempting to remember if it was his and he had read it before he dusted off the cover and looked inside. Mostly they were old textbooks, dig journals, a few trashy romance novels Sakura had hid down here when she was young and Touya still teasing her, and odds and ends.

He found her textbook and looked at it for a long moment. He almost didn't dare open it either; it would be nearly as bad as loosing the cards again. Her picture still sat vigil in the shrine, her flowers still freshened, her appearance on occasion a true blessing. But he had to put away all the things that she had touched and loved long ago (except for his children, and he wondered if sometimes they could see his hesitation when they did something that reminded him of her). After the funeral, he didn't want to see her pots and pans, her cheerful mistakes baked into the bottom, nor the quilt she had carefully sewed for their bed, nor a thousand other material things that reminded him that his wife was gone from the material world. He'd given a lot away, as well as put things into storage, and for the most part freed himself of the burden of her stuff.

Somehow he'd forgotten her textbook, ENGLISH 101 emblazoned in dusty letters across the top, with her gorgeous handwriting inside the front cover. When had he opened it? When he saw it and took it down from the shelf he had only intended to put it somewhere he would be likely to never see it again.

There it was, her handwriting--he'd missed it, he realized with a pang, just like he missed everything about her since she left. The simple, almost childish kanji read, Ama Kinomoto Nadeshiko, English 101, Spring 1979.^ They were still newlyweds then, when everything was shiny and sweet and unbelievably real. He remembered her taking that class and a loving afternoon when she had taught him to say "I love you" in that strange language and then they had made an attempt to conceive Touya, and the memory of the smell of her skin and the angle of her neck made his throat thick with loss.

Hating himself for pressing deeper into sorrow--sorrow was an indulgence he hadn't allowed himself when he lost her, so he could be there for his children--he began to turn the pages and read the little comments she had written into the margins. This is such a complicated language, it read at the bottom of the history of English introduction. Why are there so many words for one thing? she complained on a vocabulary page. He flipped through the pages, sometimes laughing, sometimes nodding in agreement, until he came to a page of common English figures of speech. Those would be pretty hard to understand, he thought. Poor Nadeshiko. For all her utter sweetness, school was never her forte. Like Sakura. Nadeshiko had gone down the list of common and famous expressions, marking some for memorization he supposed.

Love at first sight. A reference to William Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo and Juliet, where the two lovers fall for each other instantly, as though it were fated. A comparable story is Monzaemon Chikamatsu's drama "The Love Suicides at Sonezaki."^^

Time flies when you're having fun. Time does not literally fly. It refers to how quickly time appears to pass when one is having a pleasant time. First conceived by Virgil.^^^

Like when I'm with Fujitaka, she'd scribbled in the margin, along with a rough pronunciation guide.

Time heals all wounds. Loss becomes easier the more time passes. Latin Proverb.

Fujitaka closed the book because to his horror tears had started to drip onto the pages and he didn't want to smear Nadeshiko's words. After a moment he realized that it was actually he who was crying, which made things worse.

Time heals all wounds...

He felt old as he carefully reshelved the book and walked back upstairs. Later on that day, Sakura curiously asked him why his cheerful cleaning in the basement had ceased, and he said, "Ai rofu yuu," in a contemplative voice, trying to make it sound like Nadeshiko had made it sound. Then he shook his head and said that perhaps old books should remain buried. And though she was still curious, she didn't ask. The picture of her mother in the frame was from not long after she and Fujitaka had married, and she knew that meant he missed her more.

^Cardcaptor Sakura the manga was published starting in 1996. That means, one can assume, that Sakura is 10 in or around 1996. She was born in 1986 or 1985. Touya is seven years older than her, because their mother died when Sakura was three and Touya was 10. He was born on February 29 seven years before Sakura. Leap year occurred in 1980. In 1979, Nadeshiko and Fujitaka would have been newlyweds. Since she died at 27, she bore Touya at the tender age of 17, and she married at 16.

^^source: Review Puppetry; Japanese 'Romeo and Juliet' In the Language of Puppets

^^^source: "Time flies when you're having fun"

Time Heals All Wounds (Fujitaka/Nadeshiko) repost

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