storypaint | Letters from England (Eriol/Kaho)

Comm: 30_romances
Words: 801
Fandom: Cardcaptor Sakura
Title: Letters from England
Author: rhap_chan
Theme(s): 29. Affaire de Cœur (love affair)
Pairing/Characters: Hiiragizawa Eriol/Mizuki Kaho
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Cardcaptor Sakura belongs to CLAMP.
Summary: Kaho left Eriol, and so it was quite a surprise when he met her again in France and she said she was sorry.

He'd lost track of her the year after he moved back to Japan. She'd promised to follow him upon the completion of her degree, but May came and went and she wouldn't answer his calls. In October, Sakura had come to him with a small note carefully taped closed.

"This came in my last letter from Mizuki-sensei," she said, her eyes full of questions. "Why didn't she just write to you, Eriol-kun?"

"I don't know," Eriol lied, and opened the tape. "I'm sorry," she had scribbled in English, and her name. The paper had been carefully taped around the thin golden band that she'd celebrated so much-- her engagment ring.

Sakura tried to talk him through his heartache, like Syaoran had helped her, but the situation wasn't the same. He had really loved her with all his heart, and she had left him.

Finally, she gave him a big hug and left. Eriol went home with a slow step.

Nakuru wanted to call her and yell at her, to send her mean letters and a bottle full of tears. Eriol asked her to be calm. Quietly and methodically Spinel found all of the photographs of Kaho around the house, took them down, and burned them to ash.

Eventually Eriol's life went on, even if every day that he woke he missed her terribly. He didn't date-- how easy was to find someone when you appear thirty years younger than you are? He poured his energies into writing, and at the age of sixteen, Eriol's first novel was published.

He was world-famous by nineteen, but still alone.

Eriol traveled the world doing book-signings and attending literary functions, but occasionally one had to take a vacation. Eriol went to France. He was sitting in a cafe in Paris, drinking coffee and trying to remember enough French to say, "No autographs now, sorry," when he saw her again.

Mizuki Kaho, fawn-haired beauty, was walking down the street in a knee-length navy peacoat, and when he saw her, he rose to his feet in surprise. Immediately he regretted it, and sat down again, but she had seen him.

"Eriol!" she said, surprised.

He smiled painfully. "Kaho-san."

She sat down across from him. He thought about trying the "no autographs," line in French with her, but there would really be no point. She would just laugh.

They didn't speak for a moment, just looking at each other. Kaho ordered a coffee and spent several minutes stirring it and staring into it.

"I'm sorry," she said finally. She reached across the table and rested her hand on his. Her skin was smooth and she still wore the same perfume.

"I... I met somebody," she said, turning her head towards the street. A trace of blush appeared.

"Why are you telling me this?" Eriol asked dully. He was amazed to have found her here, but he didn't want to see her, didn't want to get caught up again.

Eriol poured his feelings into books. He'd had no reason to use painful emotion in his daily life for years. He'd thought he'd buried everything, used writing as therapy, but those feelings were still there.

She had her hand resting on his, and he still wished that her ring was on her hand as well.

"I met somebody, and I thought it was real, but it wasn't," Kaho said, turning back to face him. He rescued his hand from under hers. He didn't want to hear this.

"Hitsuzen," she said, leaning forward. "It has brought us together again."

Eriol shrugged to hide the desperate hope rising in him. "I don't know about that."

"What else could it be, Eriol? We are far from both of our homes."

"Perhaps it is the Devil, come to tempt me to destruction," he said.

"Perhaps it is fate, and we will now be together forever," she whispered.

"I have to catch the train," Eriol said wearily. "I am going home tomorrow."

He stood and he stood as well. He was taller than her now; that felt so strange. He could just reach out and hold her again, they could have a love affair in Paris, he could place that ring on her finger...

He could go home to Japan and the guardians who loved him.

He took the napkin from underneath his coffee and wrote his address on it, and handed it to her.

"Write," he said. Eriol knew how to write, the satisfaction of a good inkpen scratching across the paper. He knew that feelings became more real when you locked them down on paper.

Kaho smiled.

"Okay," she said. "We'll start there."

He nodded and then he hugged her, and she left. Eriol looked up at the sky and smiled just a little.

Then he walked away, trusting in fate.