storypaint | Gifts (Eriol gen)

Title: Gifts
Length: 1532 words
Prompt: cardcaptorgifts for claire_chan: Eriol isn't celebrating his birthday this year. Why?
Pairing: Eriol gen; past Eriol/Kaho; Syaoran/Sakura
Other: death themes
Excerpt: March twenty-third was bleak when Eriol awoke, the gray sky a stain promising storms later. The wind was high and the humidity low, and Eriol pulled his coat a little tighter when he emerged onto his sidewalk.

March twenty-third was bleak when Eriol awoke, the gray sky a stain promising storms later. The wind was high and the humidity low, and Eriol pulled his coat a little tighter when he emerged onto his sidewalk.

Exactly thirty minutes later he pulled up beside a concrete building, the Harrison School of Fine Arts, and the place looked almost deserted. He didn't let this disturb him. Nor did it bother him to discover the hastily-scrawled note taped to the doorframe of his usual classroom-- the teacher canceled class due to family emergency; she was terribly sorry she hadn't had time to call everyone before she left for the hospital.

It seemed that most students had come to see the note and gone already; there was no one sitting in the room when Eriol opened the door. He didn't bother with the lights. Instead he sat down at the piano bench in the middle of the comfortable dimness. He probably could have had a go at teaching the class, even though his job was accompaniment. It was just basic choir after all. But he wasn't very sad that he would have some time with the piano by himself.

He played through a few warm-ups with an easy confidence, and then pulled out the music he was scheduled to play for today. It was an old hymn, and he was quite fond of it. He played through the hymn and several subsequent variations before he moved onto slightly more complicated pieces. He was in the middle of something light and swift when he heard the door open. He turned to look, but in the dimness the woman was a little more than a lithe silhouette with clear hazel eyes.

He didn't want to disturb whatever she was doing, so he finished the piece and let the piano fall silent. She sighed a little.

"That was beautiful. What's your name?"

He hesitated a moment before replying. "Eriol Hiiragizawa," he pronounced carefully, and she nodded.

"What was that you were playing, Mr. Hiiragizawa?"

Her accent wasn't perfect, but she did a good job with his name. He gave her the name of the piece and looked down at her feet. They were bare, but the way she stood gave him the reason she was at the school-- she was a dancer. She followed his gaze and sighed again, but this time she didn't sound as happy.

"Ballet," she said. "I hate it. I decided to skip class today."

He met her eyes. "Then why are you here?" he asked gently.

"I came, but I just couldn't make myself open the door," she said, whirling away suddenly to shut the door to the room. "Then I heard you playing, Mr. Hiiragizawa. It made me want to dance for fun."

"I'm glad," he said, finding that he honestly was. The room grew suddenly dimmer and thunder rolled in the distance.

"Would you play for me again, Mr. Hiiragizawa?" she asked, suddenly shy. "I think I would like to dance in my own way."

Eriol began the piece over again, playing with variations; the bright beat became more like a tango. She spun and she flowed, her skirt whirling with her. He caught glimpses from the corner of his eyes. When finally the piece ended, she collapsed, panting, into a nearby chair. The thunder loomed again, and when lightning split the air he again noticed how sharp her eyes were. Her hair was cut in a pixie style and she seemed young to be at the school, which generally only accepted college students.

"Thank you," she said breathlessly. "I think this is the first time I've danced entirely for myself."

"You should always dance for yourself," Eriol said. It was something Nakuru had understood instinctively, and having to tell her that truth was strange. A part of him was wondering when he'd seen Nakuru last, that girl closer to him than a daughter, true flesh of his flesh. It had been only a week-- less than a week, perhaps-- since she'd gone to visit Kaho. He missed her suddenly, feeling a deep ache in his bones.

"Perhaps," she said, looking away. "Tell me, Mr. Hiiragizawa-- why are you here today?"

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "today is my birthday, and I decided to play piano for myself."

"Oh," she said, eyes wide. "Your birthday? How old are you?"

Self-consciously Eriol's hand rose to brush the gray beginning to creep into his sideburns. Clow had never had gray hair. It wasn't that he had expected to retain his youthful appearance unto death (in fact, he had been glad to grow up, after the challenges were done), but he was self-conscious all the same.

"Forty-six," Eriol lied. He was eighty-six in this lifetime, counting the years in which he hadn't aged, and Clow had lived another few centuries before him. Birthdays really held no magic for him anymore, given that he'd had so many. Now that Kaho wasn't around to plan a dinner or remind him of the date, his birthdays were quiet. And of course there was the fact that his beloved wife had been entombed on this day twelve years ago. He couldn't make himself visit the grave very often anymore, just couldn't, but Nakuru always went, leaving him and Spinelsun in the dark house alone. They both pretended to like it when she was gone, but Eriol always looked forward secretly to the night she returned and forced them to stay up all night with her as she told them about the journey. They generally fell asleep in a pile on Eriol's bed around four in the morning, and it was those days Eriol liked to wake up on, not March twenty-third. Not anymore.

"You look sad, Mr. Hiiragizawa," the girl said, the girl with the sharp hazel eyes which looked so much like Kaho's. He was jolted from his thoughts.

"Well, perhaps we should play something more cheerful," he said, a familiar smile creeping across his face. He broke into a song that he'd composed a few years back, something resembling an old Irish jig, mixed in with an old bar song Clow had generously shared in memory. The girl laughed and began to dance again. Generally her enthusiasm would have made him feel even older, but instead it warmed his spirits, and they played a few more tunes until she had to go.

Eriol ran his hands across the keys one more time, allowing the full glissando to echo through the empty room, and the sun broke through the clouds.

On his way home he called Nakuru, expecting the scratchiness of bad reception, but she was coming in very well and sounded pleased to hear from him.

"Are you coming home tonight?" he asked, and his vibrance made her smile. It had been a while since her creator had been in such a good mood on his birthday.

"Of course!" she chirruped cheerfully. "I have so much to tell you! And, oh, I almost forgot-- you'll never guess who I met in the pub."

Nakuru's next words were cut off by a beeping on the phone. Eriol asked her to hold on and took the other call.

"Eriol-kun!" the caller said, sounding as young as she had the day he had left Japan. Eriol was so surprised he nearly dropped the phone. Kinomoto Sakura hadn't called him in quite a long while. With the distance they had drifted apart, as Sakura got caught up in the excitement of school and activities and Eriol began to plan his life in England. He hadn't seen her he guessed since Kaho's funeral.

"Happy birthday, Eriol-kun!" Sakura said, and he could hear her smile over the phone line. There was a grumpy assertion in the background which Eriol assumed to be Syaoran's way of saying hello.

"Thank you, Sakura-chan. But surely this isn't the only occasion for your call?"

"Can't a friend call an old friend for no reason?" she said, giggling. "Actually, I have something to ask you. We're on vacation, and you'll never guess who we met in the pub--"

"Nakuru," Eriol said, as it dawned on him.

"Wow, Eriol-kun, how did you know?" He just laughed in return.

"Anyway, we were going to look you up, but we didn't know where you'd moved to, and Nakuru told us. We thought we'd come by and take you out for dinner-- if you don't have any plans, that is. Is that all right?"

"Honestly," Eriol said, feeling a warmth in his heart, "I'd almost forgotten it was my birthday all together."

"Well, we'll have to fix that!" Sakura said cheerfully. Eriol pulled up in his driveway just as the final clouds fled from the sun, and it was with joy that he met his dear friends when they arrived a few minutes later. He never saw the dancing girl again, though somehow he wasn't surprised. He'd found old dusty ballet slippers when he was going through Kaho's things after the funeral, and though it made him wonder, he never asked. It was better just to appreciate such strange things.

His "forty-sixth" birthday really was better this time around.

Gifts (Eriol gen)

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