storypaint | Love Unconfessed (Eriol/Tomoyo)

Title: Love Unconfessed
Author: rhap_chan
Fandom: Cardcaptor Sakura
Pairing: Hiiragizawa Eriol/Daidouji Tomoyo
Challenge #: 12 for 20loves
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Cardcaptor Sakura belongs to CLAMP.

Summary: When Eriol told Tomoyo that he loved her, she taught him something about love unconfessed.

He'd been back in Tomoeda for nearly a year when he told her that he loved her. She remembered it so clearly. It was late spring, and it was raining. She was getting out of her mother's car, coming back from a choir trip, and he was riding by on a red bike, his hair in his eyes and his clothing wet, as though the weather had suddenly surprised him, even though it had been raining for hours.

The car had pulled up on the curb but it was Eriol who elegantly opened the door for her, smile plastered to his face.

"Daidouji-san," he said. "A pleasant surprise."

"I live here," she said, raising an eyebrow. One of the bodyguards produced an umbrella. Tomoyo held it over her head, and thought about offering Eriol some shelter, but he seemed quite pleased to stand there in the rain.

"I think I love you," he said in a calm voice, but his eyes betrayed his seriousness. He'd been back in Tomoeda a year, reasons unknown, though he would never talk about Mizuki-sensei when someone mentioned her.

"I'm sorry?" Tomoyo said, blinking, and watched the smile slowly slide from his face into the muddy lawn. It was back in an instant, but she had seen it go.

"Just thought I should let you know," he said, climbing back onto his bike. It wobbled a little in the puddles as he rode away.

Tomoyo went into the house.

That evening she skipped dinner and sat in her room in the dark, contemplating Eriol. When he came back to Japan he had naturally become the fourth to their little group. Sakura had even enacted a few clumsy Cupid schemes, but they had come to naught.

Tomoyo knew who she loved, and who she would always love, no question.

She opened her box and took out Sakura's eraser, and clutched it in her hand as she thought about the past year. Had she given him any signs or hints that she was interested? Had she spoken with him any more than was necessary or enjoyable for politeness?

She didn't think so. She hadn't led him on, she was sure. But somehow she had caught him.

The next day he brought flowers to school and gave one to Sakura, as he had when he had first come to Tomoeda, and he gave a flower and a feather to Tomoyo.

"A feather?" she said to him, and he smiled again, but it wasn't the same smile he had worn the day before. It was less real.

"Fitting for an angel," he said quietly. Sakura looked from Eriol to Tomoyo and back again, and seemed to make the connection.

She let him thread the feather and the flower into her hair, but she knew she had to do something soon.

"You know who I love," she said flatly the next afternoon. She waited patiently on her porch for much of the afternoon before he rode by and saw her sitting there. The rain had passed and the sun shone brightly on the spokes of his bicycle and his glasses. They hid his eyes as he nodded and sipped the tea she had offered him.

"You're the only one who has ever known, in fact," she said, and it felt to him as though he were being reprimanded. But what could he do?

"Nothing comes of love unconfessed," he said, and saw pain well up in her eyes. When he finished his tea, she took his cup and went into the house without saying a word.

He rode away on his red bicycle, wobbling a little as he rounded the corner, but the sun on his glasses hid his eyes.

Not long afterward he left Tomoeda. The foursome had become awkward, especially with Sakura's gentle pressure on Tomoyo to capitulate to Eriol. It was the one thing Sakura wanted from her that Tomoyo could not manage.

The day before he left to study at a prestigious high school in Tokyo, he rode by her house on that red bicycle and she invited him for tea. He shut his eyes and smelled it appreciatively, but she could feel he had little heart for it anymore.

"I thought being with you would hurt more than being alone," she said. He nodded and looked up at the dull, cloudy sky.

"I was wrong, and now we can never go back to the way things were before," he said.

"You weren't wrong," she said quickly. Surprised, he waited for her next words.

"Nothing comes of love unconfessed," she said. "But sometimes it hurts one less to hurt only oneself."

"I see," he said. When he rose he hugged her and pressed a feather into her hand.

"For an angel," he said, and she said, "Thank you."

She watched him ride off on that little red bicycle with a little wobble and sighed a little.