[Table 1] [xxxHOLiC] [Clow/Yuuko]
5sentence_fics: Table One
Title: Anyway
Author: rhap_chan
Fandom: xxxHOLiC (+snippets of Cardcaptor Sakura here and there)
Pairing: Clow Reed/Yuuko Ichihara
Table/Theme: Table One, all themes
Rating: G
Word Count: 1932
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: xxxHOLiC (and 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: All themes should be taken as separate fics, or you'll be really confused.
Excerpt: Once all was silent she took out the pins in her hair and let them drop to the floor: twenty-five, well-crafted, made in a dimension that hadn't yet discovered assembly line machinery.
01. Melts in the mouth
The scones Clow made melted in Yuuko's mouth, but they didn't taste good because he told her he was leaving.
"Leaving?" she said, swallowing hard.
"Dying," he clarified, watching her face. She said nothing, finishing the scones, but the next time he came to visit she wouldn't answer the door. He died anyway.
02. Breaking bread
Clow wanted to feed her breakfast in bed. He thought it was something a man ought to do for a lady. So he woke early, crept downstairs, and made her eggs just the way she liked them. The problem was, she didn't, wouldn't budge until noon. (A lady, a lady-- well, Yuuko had her own ideas of that.)
03. Pin drop
Once all was silent she took out the pins in her hair and let them drop to the floor: twenty-five, well-crafted, made in a dimension that hadn't yet discovered assembly line machinery. They were inset on the ends with rubies, to match her eyes, he had said. She let her hair pool around her ankles, shutting her eyes for a long moment. And then she picked up the pins and set them aside for good. He had liked her hair up-- she had liked him alive.
04. Measure of a man
Clow's life was divided into eras, into long decades. First there were the three in which he belonged to the Li's, then the two in which he belonged to no one, poring over old books of dangerous lore. Another ten years of searching had brought him to Yuuko, and after fifty years in her company he had realized his dream and went away. Kero and Yue owned his dotage. She owned a book of photographs and old letters and pretended not to mind.
05. Death and taxes
Yuuko was reading the American authors with interest-- a lot of interesting things promised to come out of a country like that-- when she came upon a phrase she knew would be trite someday: "Certainty? Nothing is certain except death or taxes." She laughed and shut the book, thinking about a certain bespectacled man who'd done his best to beat both... With a focus on the death, of course. She supposed she'd done better in the end: her face was young and her pocketbook full. Who dared collect taxes on the Dimension Witch?
06. Pushing forty
When he met her and she wouldn't give her age, he looked her up and down and figured she was pushing forty, though she looked twenty, and she was embarassed by the fact. But the more she talked, the more he wondered-- she had the childlike lack of inhibitions that would prove her physical age to be correct, and yet an oldness in her eyes....
"I'm forty-two," he admitted one day, hoping curiously to get a similar truth from her.
She grinned and said, "I like younger men." She would never say anything else on the subject.
07. Two-part harmony
"You are never allowed to teach Kero drinking songs again," she said severely, before bursting out again in gales of laughter. He winced and held his forehead against the hangover headache. "You have an interesting harmony," she continued, glad for once to be the teaser rather than the teased. "And you know all the words to "Wizard Wenches Do It Best." Any chance of getting that as a recording?"
08. Almost too late
She found him sprawled carelessly in the alley, like a one-yen piece someone had dropped and hadn't bothered to pick up. He had an arm thrown over his eyes and his mouth open. She kicked him once, and then a second time, hard, and when he began to protest she dragged him to his feet.
"Destiny awaits," she whispered in his ear. "There's more than you at stake here, Clow Reed."
09. Total eclipse
The sky went dark, as dark as the beginning of the world, and she felt him clutch her fingers closer, whether in excitement or fear she wasn't sure.
"What can counter the darkness?" he whispered, seemingly to himself, and she didn't reply. But the next week he dreamed about Dark and Light and made them come to be. Dark looked like her a little, would always look like her to him. Funny how a little girl would so carefully capture this likeness of the Dimension Witch.
10. Morning dip
It was a stupid dare, but everyone knew Clow Reed couldn't resist a dare. Which is why Yue was watching from the sidelines, disapproving, as goosebumps rose on Clow's cold skin. Kero laughed and joined him. But Yuuko laughed the loudest. (Even though for losing she had to provide the booze all week.)
11. Police, freeze!
Everything was perfect and then it wasn't. People were screaming and shouting, trying desperately to put things out of reach, but the Inquisition reached everywhere, even into these dens of iniquity (there had been a spy, had to be). A place for magicians, imagine! Yuuko had seen this happen before, and would again-- she tucked herself away in a cabinet she'd long had chosen in case of emergency. Sharing it with a snot-nosed know-it-all fourteen-year-old was not part of the plan (though he did seem like a smart kid, that Clow).
12. Paperweight
He wanted to see everything in the shop-- to feel everything, actually-- and he flitted around the room like a kid in a candy store. Yuuko winced a little but let him try. It would be better for him to figure things out by experience. The innocence of a polished rock paperweight caught his eyes, and he should have known better than to touch, but when it bit him it came as a surprise to her as well (she'd forgotten where she'd put the darn thing). She pried the creature off and dressed his wounds, and Clow Reed didn't play around in her storeroom ever again.
13. White room/yellow hand print
Sometimes she dreamed of a pure white room, and a chair in which he sat and waited.
"Not yet, not yet," she always cried, turning away from the room that smelled of old death. She had paid dearly for this eternal youth and she would spend it all before she joined him.
On the days she dreamed thus she took some time to visit his grave. She always kicked it and said, "You could have stayed too."
14. Stay with me
She never said stay with me and he never said he wanted to. Their relationship had carefully etched boundaries neither was willing to cross. People of their kind were destined lonely, they each thought. Sometimes she wanted to ask; sometimes he wanted to stay. But pride was a better captor than one would think, and it held two magicians captive for a long time.
15. Walking tall
As stupid as it seems, he'd never met a woman that tall before. When they danced they stood at the same height and it almost made him uncomfortable. Her eyes blazed with strength and independence, but she was drunkenly playful and real, all the time. She blinked and became serious. He fell in love before he realized.
16. Crazy like a fox
For the first year of his training, he watched the people who came into and out of her shop with such awe.
"Crazy as a fox," he said to her once.
Her only reply: "Would you like to say that to the kitsune-warashi?"
He shook his head and continued washing floors. It was funny how quickly he got used to things being different on the outside.
17. Years of erosion
She couldn't find his grave now, even if she wanted. Years of erosion and neglect covered the spot, as well as a forest and later a minimall. She didn't need to look at the things of him she had left anyway. Perhaps that's why she was so annoyed when Eriol came. He dredged it all up, undoing the years of erosion covering her heart.
18. Interruption
He was good at unwelcome interruptions, which was strange considering that he saw the future. Perhaps it amused him. It was a guarantee that he would drop in when she was mid-spell, mid-clothed, mid-asleep. She gave up on hitting him for it. (Especially because, more often than not, his interruptions began with kisses and didn't end until some time later.)
19. Just the beginning
They met when he was three and she ran blood-red fingernails through fine Chinese hair.
"It's just the beginning," she whispered in his ear, returning him to his mother when he began to cry.
They met again when he was twenty-five-- he picked her up and swung her around and whispered in her ear, "It's just the beginning." The years rolled on and things began to change, change, change too much...
"It's just the beginning," he whispered when he died, and for the first time since they'd met, she cried.
20. Box of crackerjacks (caveat)
"There isn't a prize in the bottom," she said, lifting an eyebrow, as Clow thrust his arm deep into the bowl holding their grain.
"That's what you think," he said, pulling a coin out and tossing it to her.
"Very funny," she said, rolling her eyes. "Don't think I don't remember that you owed me money!"
"Don't think I don't remember you owe me sake," he said lightly, as she tossed the coin back, pouting.
21. Proud as a peacock
They were on one of their trips when he got the idea for a nature walk. When first he saw the creature, it made him think of her-- all feathery and bright and excitable. He told her so, grinning. The guide told him the bird was male, a peacock, and Yuuko gave him one of those knowing looks. He knew he'd hear about this later.
22. Sandpaper eyes
His eyes were so dry that blinking felt like sandpaper. He decided not to blink, not to open them ever again. He heard a quiet moan after a moment and knew it to be his companion. Unhappily he cracked his lids and surveyed the destruction of the shop. The sunlight was too bright, even through the curtains, and there were things flung everywhere. He shut his eyes again in defeat-- there would be time enough later to clean and regret their drinking binge (now to sleep).
23. Cup of coffee
It was stupid, the things he remembered: like the fact she made the best coffee. He could never get her to tell him where it came from-- she just grinned. But after a long night that began with an early morning, Yuuko's coffee was heavenly. Yue never quite learned the trick and he didn't trust Kero in the kitchen without thumbs. So after she left, he just had to suffer.
24. Drop in the ocean
One hundred fifteen years-- it was nothing, a drop in the ocean, compared to the length of her life (always, always, there has been One to grant wishes, hasn't there?). There were men before, there would be men afterwards... But he was the one she remembered most. For a while, she had wished-- but that would not do, could not do. In the end she was always alone.
25. You’ve got a friend
He held her hair when she threw up after a particularly terrible drinking binge. She helped teach Yue and Kero how to talk. They made the Mokonas together, side by side. He never said to her that his creations were his only friends; she never said that even with Maru and Moro she was alone. They didn't need to.
Title: Anyway
Author: rhap_chan
Fandom: xxxHOLiC (+snippets of Cardcaptor Sakura here and there)
Pairing: Clow Reed/Yuuko Ichihara
Table/Theme: Table One, all themes
Rating: G
Word Count: 1932
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: xxxHOLiC (and 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: All themes should be taken as separate fics, or you'll be really confused.
Excerpt: Once all was silent she took out the pins in her hair and let them drop to the floor: twenty-five, well-crafted, made in a dimension that hadn't yet discovered assembly line machinery.
01. Melts in the mouth
The scones Clow made melted in Yuuko's mouth, but they didn't taste good because he told her he was leaving.
"Leaving?" she said, swallowing hard.
"Dying," he clarified, watching her face. She said nothing, finishing the scones, but the next time he came to visit she wouldn't answer the door. He died anyway.
02. Breaking bread
Clow wanted to feed her breakfast in bed. He thought it was something a man ought to do for a lady. So he woke early, crept downstairs, and made her eggs just the way she liked them. The problem was, she didn't, wouldn't budge until noon. (A lady, a lady-- well, Yuuko had her own ideas of that.)
03. Pin drop
Once all was silent she took out the pins in her hair and let them drop to the floor: twenty-five, well-crafted, made in a dimension that hadn't yet discovered assembly line machinery. They were inset on the ends with rubies, to match her eyes, he had said. She let her hair pool around her ankles, shutting her eyes for a long moment. And then she picked up the pins and set them aside for good. He had liked her hair up-- she had liked him alive.
04. Measure of a man
Clow's life was divided into eras, into long decades. First there were the three in which he belonged to the Li's, then the two in which he belonged to no one, poring over old books of dangerous lore. Another ten years of searching had brought him to Yuuko, and after fifty years in her company he had realized his dream and went away. Kero and Yue owned his dotage. She owned a book of photographs and old letters and pretended not to mind.
05. Death and taxes
Yuuko was reading the American authors with interest-- a lot of interesting things promised to come out of a country like that-- when she came upon a phrase she knew would be trite someday: "Certainty? Nothing is certain except death or taxes." She laughed and shut the book, thinking about a certain bespectacled man who'd done his best to beat both... With a focus on the death, of course. She supposed she'd done better in the end: her face was young and her pocketbook full. Who dared collect taxes on the Dimension Witch?
06. Pushing forty
When he met her and she wouldn't give her age, he looked her up and down and figured she was pushing forty, though she looked twenty, and she was embarassed by the fact. But the more she talked, the more he wondered-- she had the childlike lack of inhibitions that would prove her physical age to be correct, and yet an oldness in her eyes....
"I'm forty-two," he admitted one day, hoping curiously to get a similar truth from her.
She grinned and said, "I like younger men." She would never say anything else on the subject.
07. Two-part harmony
"You are never allowed to teach Kero drinking songs again," she said severely, before bursting out again in gales of laughter. He winced and held his forehead against the hangover headache. "You have an interesting harmony," she continued, glad for once to be the teaser rather than the teased. "And you know all the words to "Wizard Wenches Do It Best." Any chance of getting that as a recording?"
08. Almost too late
She found him sprawled carelessly in the alley, like a one-yen piece someone had dropped and hadn't bothered to pick up. He had an arm thrown over his eyes and his mouth open. She kicked him once, and then a second time, hard, and when he began to protest she dragged him to his feet.
"Destiny awaits," she whispered in his ear. "There's more than you at stake here, Clow Reed."
09. Total eclipse
The sky went dark, as dark as the beginning of the world, and she felt him clutch her fingers closer, whether in excitement or fear she wasn't sure.
"What can counter the darkness?" he whispered, seemingly to himself, and she didn't reply. But the next week he dreamed about Dark and Light and made them come to be. Dark looked like her a little, would always look like her to him. Funny how a little girl would so carefully capture this likeness of the Dimension Witch.
10. Morning dip
It was a stupid dare, but everyone knew Clow Reed couldn't resist a dare. Which is why Yue was watching from the sidelines, disapproving, as goosebumps rose on Clow's cold skin. Kero laughed and joined him. But Yuuko laughed the loudest. (Even though for losing she had to provide the booze all week.)
11. Police, freeze!
Everything was perfect and then it wasn't. People were screaming and shouting, trying desperately to put things out of reach, but the Inquisition reached everywhere, even into these dens of iniquity (there had been a spy, had to be). A place for magicians, imagine! Yuuko had seen this happen before, and would again-- she tucked herself away in a cabinet she'd long had chosen in case of emergency. Sharing it with a snot-nosed know-it-all fourteen-year-old was not part of the plan (though he did seem like a smart kid, that Clow).
12. Paperweight
He wanted to see everything in the shop-- to feel everything, actually-- and he flitted around the room like a kid in a candy store. Yuuko winced a little but let him try. It would be better for him to figure things out by experience. The innocence of a polished rock paperweight caught his eyes, and he should have known better than to touch, but when it bit him it came as a surprise to her as well (she'd forgotten where she'd put the darn thing). She pried the creature off and dressed his wounds, and Clow Reed didn't play around in her storeroom ever again.
13. White room/yellow hand print
Sometimes she dreamed of a pure white room, and a chair in which he sat and waited.
"Not yet, not yet," she always cried, turning away from the room that smelled of old death. She had paid dearly for this eternal youth and she would spend it all before she joined him.
On the days she dreamed thus she took some time to visit his grave. She always kicked it and said, "You could have stayed too."
14. Stay with me
She never said stay with me and he never said he wanted to. Their relationship had carefully etched boundaries neither was willing to cross. People of their kind were destined lonely, they each thought. Sometimes she wanted to ask; sometimes he wanted to stay. But pride was a better captor than one would think, and it held two magicians captive for a long time.
15. Walking tall
As stupid as it seems, he'd never met a woman that tall before. When they danced they stood at the same height and it almost made him uncomfortable. Her eyes blazed with strength and independence, but she was drunkenly playful and real, all the time. She blinked and became serious. He fell in love before he realized.
16. Crazy like a fox
For the first year of his training, he watched the people who came into and out of her shop with such awe.
"Crazy as a fox," he said to her once.
Her only reply: "Would you like to say that to the kitsune-warashi?"
He shook his head and continued washing floors. It was funny how quickly he got used to things being different on the outside.
17. Years of erosion
She couldn't find his grave now, even if she wanted. Years of erosion and neglect covered the spot, as well as a forest and later a minimall. She didn't need to look at the things of him she had left anyway. Perhaps that's why she was so annoyed when Eriol came. He dredged it all up, undoing the years of erosion covering her heart.
18. Interruption
He was good at unwelcome interruptions, which was strange considering that he saw the future. Perhaps it amused him. It was a guarantee that he would drop in when she was mid-spell, mid-clothed, mid-asleep. She gave up on hitting him for it. (Especially because, more often than not, his interruptions began with kisses and didn't end until some time later.)
19. Just the beginning
They met when he was three and she ran blood-red fingernails through fine Chinese hair.
"It's just the beginning," she whispered in his ear, returning him to his mother when he began to cry.
They met again when he was twenty-five-- he picked her up and swung her around and whispered in her ear, "It's just the beginning." The years rolled on and things began to change, change, change too much...
"It's just the beginning," he whispered when he died, and for the first time since they'd met, she cried.
20. Box of crackerjacks (caveat)
"There isn't a prize in the bottom," she said, lifting an eyebrow, as Clow thrust his arm deep into the bowl holding their grain.
"That's what you think," he said, pulling a coin out and tossing it to her.
"Very funny," she said, rolling her eyes. "Don't think I don't remember that you owed me money!"
"Don't think I don't remember you owe me sake," he said lightly, as she tossed the coin back, pouting.
21. Proud as a peacock
They were on one of their trips when he got the idea for a nature walk. When first he saw the creature, it made him think of her-- all feathery and bright and excitable. He told her so, grinning. The guide told him the bird was male, a peacock, and Yuuko gave him one of those knowing looks. He knew he'd hear about this later.
22. Sandpaper eyes
His eyes were so dry that blinking felt like sandpaper. He decided not to blink, not to open them ever again. He heard a quiet moan after a moment and knew it to be his companion. Unhappily he cracked his lids and surveyed the destruction of the shop. The sunlight was too bright, even through the curtains, and there were things flung everywhere. He shut his eyes again in defeat-- there would be time enough later to clean and regret their drinking binge (now to sleep).
23. Cup of coffee
It was stupid, the things he remembered: like the fact she made the best coffee. He could never get her to tell him where it came from-- she just grinned. But after a long night that began with an early morning, Yuuko's coffee was heavenly. Yue never quite learned the trick and he didn't trust Kero in the kitchen without thumbs. So after she left, he just had to suffer.
24. Drop in the ocean
One hundred fifteen years-- it was nothing, a drop in the ocean, compared to the length of her life (always, always, there has been One to grant wishes, hasn't there?). There were men before, there would be men afterwards... But he was the one she remembered most. For a while, she had wished-- but that would not do, could not do. In the end she was always alone.
25. You’ve got a friend
He held her hair when she threw up after a particularly terrible drinking binge. She helped teach Yue and Kero how to talk. They made the Mokonas together, side by side. He never said to her that his creations were his only friends; she never said that even with Maru and Moro she was alone. They didn't need to.