Fic: "Reunion", semi-gen
Because of course my brain could not be content with NaNo; no, it had to produce half of this in one evening (and then leave me to work on the other half alone, of course).
Reunion
Canon: Yes, manga, though anime works just as well, really.
Rating: G.
Genre: Angst-seques-into-fluff-because-I-have-this-desperate-need-to-fix-all-Touya's-problems.
Pairings: Touya/Yukito established relationship, but really more gen.
Length: 2,140 words; complete.
Summary: The Amamiya family never met Touya. Of family, affection, and acceptance.
"What's wrong, To-ya?"
"It doesn't matter." Touya didn't even turn his head to answer, just went on staring out the apartment window at the street.
Yukito sighed loudly and sat down next to him on the bench that served as a window seat. "You do know I know you far too well to believe that, right?"
He still didn't turn around. "What makes you think something's wrong?"
"Several reasons." Yukito ticked them off on his fingers as he spoke. "One, you were smiling when you picked up the phone, but afterward you weren't, even though it was Sakura-chan calling; two, you won't even look at me, so you're hiding something; and three, I can feel you brooding from the kitchen. Come on, To-ya, what's wrong?"
"I told you, it doesn't matter."
"To-ya…"
"Don't worry about it, Yuki. I'm fine, really." Although the smile Touya turned on his boyfriend would have passed for normal to anyone who did not know him well, to Yukito it seemed a twisted grimace.
Responding to the expression rather than the smile, Yukito reached out and wrapped his arms around Touya's shoulders. "It's all right. You can tell me, can't you? It'll feel better if you talk about it."
"I doubt it," said Touya flatly.
"Have you ever tried?"
"…No," he admitted.
"Well, then, why not?"
"I don't want to bother you about something you can't do anything about."
Yukito almost laughed, or cried; he wasn't sure which. "To-ya, if you're bothered, I'm bothered. Can I at least know what I'm bothered about?"
"…All right." Taking a deep breath, his whole body tense, Touya began by saying simply, "Sakura mentioned that Daidouji Sonomi-san visited the house yesterday to see her."
Yukito nodded, not quite understanding but feeling closer to it. "I don't believe I've ever met her at your house," he offered tentatively.
By the barely perceptible flinch Touya's body gave, Yukito saw that he had guess correctly. "You wouldn't have. She never came."
"Not when your mother was alive, even?"
"Not even then." Touya closed his eyes for a moment, and Yukito held him closer as he continued, "I remember Okaasan sent her and the rest of the Amamiya family invitations to visit every New Years' Day. She never even answered them, or the Christmas presents, or the Valentine's chocolate…and now she comes just to visit Sakura."
"I recall when she came to Sakura-chan's field day," Yukito said, trying once more to keep Touya talking. "I assumed you'd met her before."
Touya laughed hollowly. "No, I hadn't. None of that family ever spoke to Okaasan, or Otousan, or me. They didn't even talk to us at her funeral. She talked about them, though, when I was little. She was so sure that they would come around eventually: she told me all about her grandfather, and her uncles and aunts, and of course her darling cousin Sonomi, like they were people I'd meet at New Years'."
"And you never did." Yukito snuggled closer to Touya on the narrow bench, holding him as tightly as he could, and he felt Touya relax into the embrace just a little. He was beginning to truly understand, and what he heard hurt. Yukito himself had been created out of nothing, with no family outside of his own false memories, but now he did have a family, made up of Touya, Sakura, Kero, the Cards, and all the others who were part of Clow's strange, magical family. He had never thought about what it would be like to have a family who never acknowledged your existence.
"I never did," he agreed. "After a while, I figured I never would, especially after Okaasan died and they still never did anything. And then Sakura…Sakura met Daidouji-san and all of a sudden she became like Daidouji-san's second daughter, and she met our great-grandfather and he gave her some of Okaasan's things. I've never met him."
"Sakura-chan's easy to love," Yukito said.
Touya nodded and seemed suddenly very tired. "I know. That's why I said it didn't matter. Everyone loves Sakura; that's how she is. It's silly to be--" He broke off and looked away again.
"Jealous?" prompted Yukito as gently as he could. "Because you're Nadeshiko-san's child as well?"
"Yeah. I used to want to meet them so much. Now I'm not sure…not sure they even remember I exist. Maybe they hate me."
It was said so simply that it took Yukito a moment to understand it. When he did, he was indignant. "If they do, they're fools! They have no reason to hate you, To-ya. Don't think about it that way."
"Yes, dear." Some of the humor was back in Touya's voice, and Yukito smiled himself to hear it. "But you see why I told you not to worry about it? There's nothing you can do."
"Mmm." But Yukito reserved his judgment, and after Touya left for class he picked up the phone and dialed. "Hello, Sakura-chan? I have a favor to ask."
* * *
"Sakura-chan wants us to come visit her on Sunday," Yukito said in a conversational tone the next day. "I think she wants you to explain her chemistry work."
Touya smirked. "The math still too much for her?"
"I think her exact words were, 'What's the point of having a big brother who won't help me with my homework?'"
"I feel so loved." Then Touya looked at Yukito sharply. "Are you sure that's all? Because I thought Tomoyo-san was helping Sakura with chemistry."
"Maybe Tomoyo-san thought that you could explain it better," said Yukito calmly. Touya raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Still, that evident suspicion made Yukito feel less guilty when he and Touya walked into the Kinomoto house to find that Sakura had asked her Amamiya relatives to visit.
Touya froze for a moment when he heard them, which gave Yukito time to close the door firmly behind them. He was still reaching for the knob when Sakura came bouncing over with a cheerful cry of, "Oniichan! Yukito-san! Hello!"
"Hello to you too, Sakura-chan," Yukito said politely as Touya mechanically kicked off his shoes.
"Oniichan, I really don't understand this whole thing about energy levels, and we have a test tomorrow. Help me?" Sakura chattered lightly as she and Yukito all but dragged Touya into the living room.
The two people already in there looked up as they entered, and it took a judiciously placed elbow in the ribs from Yukito to make Touya keep going almost as though there were nothing out of the ordinary. He nodded stiffly to his relatives but gave them no greater acknowledgment as he followed Sakura to the low table where her homework was spread out. Yukito sighed inwardly, beginning to suspect that it had been a mistake to even try bringing them together.
Sakura, apparently, did not think so. "Great-grandfather, you know my brother, right?"
"I'm afraid we've never met," the old man replied with remarkable self-possession.
Yukito decided then and there not to feel guilty about having told Sakura only that he wanted to know her and Touya's family. When she said innocently, "Really?" he saw the guilt flickering across Amamiya Masaki's face.
"I'm sorry to have missed the opportunity," he said, at which Touya looked him full in the face for the first time. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Touya-san."
"Likewise, Amamiya-san." Touya bowed stiffly. He looked shocked, and Yukito allowed himself a moment of ill-wishing against these people who had hurt Touya so.
Sonomi just said, "I know you must know me by now, Touya-san," but since they were the first words Yukito had ever heard her say to Touya, he counted them as a victory.
"So, Oniichan. Help me? I just don't get it," Sakura said, resolutely returning to her chemistry work when it became apparent that none of her relatives were going to say anything more to each other.
Touya knelt on the other side of the table and answered, as though there was no one else in the room, "What don't you get?"
"Anything! I'm going to fail!"
"No, you're not," Touya replied, and Yukito could tell that he was still nervous from the absence of any friendly insult. "Show me the assignment, and we'll go from there."
While the siblings worked, Yukito talked politely with Sonomi and Masaki, who replied in kind. "Oh, you're in college? What are you studying?"
"Comparative literature," Yukito said.
"That sounds interesting," said Sonomi. "Not very useful, though."
Yukito laughed. "Well, To-ya's chemistry is useful enough for two, so it balances out." He mentioned Touya several times in this fashion, idly dropping remarks about his sports, his grades, and so on, and noticed that Masaki, at least, was listening sharply to them.
"Have you known Touya-san long?" he asked finally.
Yukito shrugged. "I moved here in eighth grade, so I suppose I have. There are probably a lot of people who've known To-ya longer, though. He's very popular," he added with a smirk in Touya's direction.
"I heard that," Touya growled. "And you should talk. Half the college is in love with you, and they haven't even met you."
"That's only the half that already got tired of sending you love notes you always ignore and decided that I'm the next best thing." Yukito smiled when he saw just a little of the tension drain out of Touya's frame.
Sonomi laughed. "My Tomoyo is just the same. Do you know she gets more love notes every week than I got in my whole life?" An expression of surprise passed over her face as she heard something in her own words that she had not expected to hear.
Yukito pretended not to have noticed. "I very much doubt that, Daidouji-san."
The only questions Yukito dodged, after that, were questions designed to make him explain exactly how well he knew Touya. That was Touya's to tell or not, as he judged fit. Touya sometimes looked up when Yukito adroitly avoided the question, and he wondered what Touya thought he should be saying.
After some time Sonomi stood and left, declaring that she had an important meeting. Not long afterward, Sakura got tired of chemistry and said, "Does anyone want pudding? Otousan made a lot yesterday, and it'll take us forever to eat it if you don't help."
Yukito avoided thinking about how much pudding it would take Kero "forever" to eat and instead said, when the others had all made various noises of acquiescence, "I'll help you bring it, Sakura-chan."
When they returned with the pudding, Yukito yielded to his baser impulses and signed to Sakura to be quiet, listening closely to the conversation in the living room.
"I'm sorry I never met you before, Touya-san," Masaki was saying.
Touya's response, when it came, was so quiet Yukito had to strain to hear it. "You could have."
The old man sighed. "You have to understand that it was…difficult, after Nadeshiko-san married. My son was foolish, perhaps, to behave as he did, but he had a right as her father to approve or disapprove as he saw fit. It would have been inappropriate to visit when he did not."
"You visit now."
"My son, rest his soul, told me when he was ill that he was sorry that he had never seen his grandchildren. It is the least I can do to see them for him." Yukito waited through the long silence, poking Sakura when she seemed on the point of going in. At last, Masaki spoke again. "Seeing you, I am also sorry that he never met you. You are…very like him, Touya-san."
"Thank you." The words were quiet, but there was enough surprised happiness in them to almost break Yukito's heart. He stomped on the Yue part of him, who was saying that hanging the entire Amamiya family from trees with ice crystals would be no more than they deserved.
Masaki heard it too. "Touya-san. I want to apologize on behalf of myself and my family for the way we treated you. When Nadeshiko-san married your father, she shattered all our dearest hopes for her. Then, when you were born, she only went further away from us. We missed her, and we took it out on you. I apologize; we were wrong to behave that way."
"It doesn't matter," said Touya. "Please don't worry about it."
Apparently that response cut as little ice with Masaki as it had with Yukito. "If not for Sakura-san, I would not be here now. That is also wrong; I should not have only been looking for an echo of my granddaughter in her children. You may not be Nadeshiko-san, but you are my great-grandson, and you deserve better from me."
"Amamiya-san, it's not a problem, really--"
"Let me finish. I know I can never make amends for the years of neglect, but I would like to have the chance to try. It would make me very happy if you would agree to visit at New Years'."
Even from outside, Yukito could hear Touya's surprised smile in the sharp intake of breath. "Thank you. I would love to."
The urge to be with Touya to support him overwhelmed Yukito's wish to hear more, and he slipped into the room, Sakura following.
"There's tea, too," Sakura said, either unaware of or deliberately ignoring the tension in the room. "Who wants the raspberry pudding?"
Yukito took some pudding and sat back down on the couch, keeping a discreet distance between himself and Touya. He was surprised, therefore, when Touya sat down as close to him as he could be without sitting on him. Yukito blinked at him and Touya took advantage of his distraction to steal a bite of his pudding.
"To-ya!"
Touya blinked at him innocently, in everything but the wariness in his face as though it were any other day at the Kinomoto house. "What?"
Yukito revenged himself by stealing a much larger bite of Touya's pudding. As he swallowed it, Touya leaned slightly against his shoulder, meeting Masaki's gaze with just a hint of defiance. The old man looked sad for a moment, then he smiled wistfully. "You are like your mother."
Touya smiled, really smiled, and Yukito thought he might burst with reflected happiness.
Reunion
Canon: Yes, manga, though anime works just as well, really.
Rating: G.
Genre: Angst-seques-into-fluff-because-I-have-this-desperate-need-to-fix-all-Touya's-problems.
Pairings: Touya/Yukito established relationship, but really more gen.
Length: 2,140 words; complete.
Summary: The Amamiya family never met Touya. Of family, affection, and acceptance.
"What's wrong, To-ya?"
"It doesn't matter." Touya didn't even turn his head to answer, just went on staring out the apartment window at the street.
Yukito sighed loudly and sat down next to him on the bench that served as a window seat. "You do know I know you far too well to believe that, right?"
He still didn't turn around. "What makes you think something's wrong?"
"Several reasons." Yukito ticked them off on his fingers as he spoke. "One, you were smiling when you picked up the phone, but afterward you weren't, even though it was Sakura-chan calling; two, you won't even look at me, so you're hiding something; and three, I can feel you brooding from the kitchen. Come on, To-ya, what's wrong?"
"I told you, it doesn't matter."
"To-ya…"
"Don't worry about it, Yuki. I'm fine, really." Although the smile Touya turned on his boyfriend would have passed for normal to anyone who did not know him well, to Yukito it seemed a twisted grimace.
Responding to the expression rather than the smile, Yukito reached out and wrapped his arms around Touya's shoulders. "It's all right. You can tell me, can't you? It'll feel better if you talk about it."
"I doubt it," said Touya flatly.
"Have you ever tried?"
"…No," he admitted.
"Well, then, why not?"
"I don't want to bother you about something you can't do anything about."
Yukito almost laughed, or cried; he wasn't sure which. "To-ya, if you're bothered, I'm bothered. Can I at least know what I'm bothered about?"
"…All right." Taking a deep breath, his whole body tense, Touya began by saying simply, "Sakura mentioned that Daidouji Sonomi-san visited the house yesterday to see her."
Yukito nodded, not quite understanding but feeling closer to it. "I don't believe I've ever met her at your house," he offered tentatively.
By the barely perceptible flinch Touya's body gave, Yukito saw that he had guess correctly. "You wouldn't have. She never came."
"Not when your mother was alive, even?"
"Not even then." Touya closed his eyes for a moment, and Yukito held him closer as he continued, "I remember Okaasan sent her and the rest of the Amamiya family invitations to visit every New Years' Day. She never even answered them, or the Christmas presents, or the Valentine's chocolate…and now she comes just to visit Sakura."
"I recall when she came to Sakura-chan's field day," Yukito said, trying once more to keep Touya talking. "I assumed you'd met her before."
Touya laughed hollowly. "No, I hadn't. None of that family ever spoke to Okaasan, or Otousan, or me. They didn't even talk to us at her funeral. She talked about them, though, when I was little. She was so sure that they would come around eventually: she told me all about her grandfather, and her uncles and aunts, and of course her darling cousin Sonomi, like they were people I'd meet at New Years'."
"And you never did." Yukito snuggled closer to Touya on the narrow bench, holding him as tightly as he could, and he felt Touya relax into the embrace just a little. He was beginning to truly understand, and what he heard hurt. Yukito himself had been created out of nothing, with no family outside of his own false memories, but now he did have a family, made up of Touya, Sakura, Kero, the Cards, and all the others who were part of Clow's strange, magical family. He had never thought about what it would be like to have a family who never acknowledged your existence.
"I never did," he agreed. "After a while, I figured I never would, especially after Okaasan died and they still never did anything. And then Sakura…Sakura met Daidouji-san and all of a sudden she became like Daidouji-san's second daughter, and she met our great-grandfather and he gave her some of Okaasan's things. I've never met him."
"Sakura-chan's easy to love," Yukito said.
Touya nodded and seemed suddenly very tired. "I know. That's why I said it didn't matter. Everyone loves Sakura; that's how she is. It's silly to be--" He broke off and looked away again.
"Jealous?" prompted Yukito as gently as he could. "Because you're Nadeshiko-san's child as well?"
"Yeah. I used to want to meet them so much. Now I'm not sure…not sure they even remember I exist. Maybe they hate me."
It was said so simply that it took Yukito a moment to understand it. When he did, he was indignant. "If they do, they're fools! They have no reason to hate you, To-ya. Don't think about it that way."
"Yes, dear." Some of the humor was back in Touya's voice, and Yukito smiled himself to hear it. "But you see why I told you not to worry about it? There's nothing you can do."
"Mmm." But Yukito reserved his judgment, and after Touya left for class he picked up the phone and dialed. "Hello, Sakura-chan? I have a favor to ask."
* * *
"Sakura-chan wants us to come visit her on Sunday," Yukito said in a conversational tone the next day. "I think she wants you to explain her chemistry work."
Touya smirked. "The math still too much for her?"
"I think her exact words were, 'What's the point of having a big brother who won't help me with my homework?'"
"I feel so loved." Then Touya looked at Yukito sharply. "Are you sure that's all? Because I thought Tomoyo-san was helping Sakura with chemistry."
"Maybe Tomoyo-san thought that you could explain it better," said Yukito calmly. Touya raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Still, that evident suspicion made Yukito feel less guilty when he and Touya walked into the Kinomoto house to find that Sakura had asked her Amamiya relatives to visit.
Touya froze for a moment when he heard them, which gave Yukito time to close the door firmly behind them. He was still reaching for the knob when Sakura came bouncing over with a cheerful cry of, "Oniichan! Yukito-san! Hello!"
"Hello to you too, Sakura-chan," Yukito said politely as Touya mechanically kicked off his shoes.
"Oniichan, I really don't understand this whole thing about energy levels, and we have a test tomorrow. Help me?" Sakura chattered lightly as she and Yukito all but dragged Touya into the living room.
The two people already in there looked up as they entered, and it took a judiciously placed elbow in the ribs from Yukito to make Touya keep going almost as though there were nothing out of the ordinary. He nodded stiffly to his relatives but gave them no greater acknowledgment as he followed Sakura to the low table where her homework was spread out. Yukito sighed inwardly, beginning to suspect that it had been a mistake to even try bringing them together.
Sakura, apparently, did not think so. "Great-grandfather, you know my brother, right?"
"I'm afraid we've never met," the old man replied with remarkable self-possession.
Yukito decided then and there not to feel guilty about having told Sakura only that he wanted to know her and Touya's family. When she said innocently, "Really?" he saw the guilt flickering across Amamiya Masaki's face.
"I'm sorry to have missed the opportunity," he said, at which Touya looked him full in the face for the first time. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Touya-san."
"Likewise, Amamiya-san." Touya bowed stiffly. He looked shocked, and Yukito allowed himself a moment of ill-wishing against these people who had hurt Touya so.
Sonomi just said, "I know you must know me by now, Touya-san," but since they were the first words Yukito had ever heard her say to Touya, he counted them as a victory.
"So, Oniichan. Help me? I just don't get it," Sakura said, resolutely returning to her chemistry work when it became apparent that none of her relatives were going to say anything more to each other.
Touya knelt on the other side of the table and answered, as though there was no one else in the room, "What don't you get?"
"Anything! I'm going to fail!"
"No, you're not," Touya replied, and Yukito could tell that he was still nervous from the absence of any friendly insult. "Show me the assignment, and we'll go from there."
While the siblings worked, Yukito talked politely with Sonomi and Masaki, who replied in kind. "Oh, you're in college? What are you studying?"
"Comparative literature," Yukito said.
"That sounds interesting," said Sonomi. "Not very useful, though."
Yukito laughed. "Well, To-ya's chemistry is useful enough for two, so it balances out." He mentioned Touya several times in this fashion, idly dropping remarks about his sports, his grades, and so on, and noticed that Masaki, at least, was listening sharply to them.
"Have you known Touya-san long?" he asked finally.
Yukito shrugged. "I moved here in eighth grade, so I suppose I have. There are probably a lot of people who've known To-ya longer, though. He's very popular," he added with a smirk in Touya's direction.
"I heard that," Touya growled. "And you should talk. Half the college is in love with you, and they haven't even met you."
"That's only the half that already got tired of sending you love notes you always ignore and decided that I'm the next best thing." Yukito smiled when he saw just a little of the tension drain out of Touya's frame.
Sonomi laughed. "My Tomoyo is just the same. Do you know she gets more love notes every week than I got in my whole life?" An expression of surprise passed over her face as she heard something in her own words that she had not expected to hear.
Yukito pretended not to have noticed. "I very much doubt that, Daidouji-san."
The only questions Yukito dodged, after that, were questions designed to make him explain exactly how well he knew Touya. That was Touya's to tell or not, as he judged fit. Touya sometimes looked up when Yukito adroitly avoided the question, and he wondered what Touya thought he should be saying.
After some time Sonomi stood and left, declaring that she had an important meeting. Not long afterward, Sakura got tired of chemistry and said, "Does anyone want pudding? Otousan made a lot yesterday, and it'll take us forever to eat it if you don't help."
Yukito avoided thinking about how much pudding it would take Kero "forever" to eat and instead said, when the others had all made various noises of acquiescence, "I'll help you bring it, Sakura-chan."
When they returned with the pudding, Yukito yielded to his baser impulses and signed to Sakura to be quiet, listening closely to the conversation in the living room.
"I'm sorry I never met you before, Touya-san," Masaki was saying.
Touya's response, when it came, was so quiet Yukito had to strain to hear it. "You could have."
The old man sighed. "You have to understand that it was…difficult, after Nadeshiko-san married. My son was foolish, perhaps, to behave as he did, but he had a right as her father to approve or disapprove as he saw fit. It would have been inappropriate to visit when he did not."
"You visit now."
"My son, rest his soul, told me when he was ill that he was sorry that he had never seen his grandchildren. It is the least I can do to see them for him." Yukito waited through the long silence, poking Sakura when she seemed on the point of going in. At last, Masaki spoke again. "Seeing you, I am also sorry that he never met you. You are…very like him, Touya-san."
"Thank you." The words were quiet, but there was enough surprised happiness in them to almost break Yukito's heart. He stomped on the Yue part of him, who was saying that hanging the entire Amamiya family from trees with ice crystals would be no more than they deserved.
Masaki heard it too. "Touya-san. I want to apologize on behalf of myself and my family for the way we treated you. When Nadeshiko-san married your father, she shattered all our dearest hopes for her. Then, when you were born, she only went further away from us. We missed her, and we took it out on you. I apologize; we were wrong to behave that way."
"It doesn't matter," said Touya. "Please don't worry about it."
Apparently that response cut as little ice with Masaki as it had with Yukito. "If not for Sakura-san, I would not be here now. That is also wrong; I should not have only been looking for an echo of my granddaughter in her children. You may not be Nadeshiko-san, but you are my great-grandson, and you deserve better from me."
"Amamiya-san, it's not a problem, really--"
"Let me finish. I know I can never make amends for the years of neglect, but I would like to have the chance to try. It would make me very happy if you would agree to visit at New Years'."
Even from outside, Yukito could hear Touya's surprised smile in the sharp intake of breath. "Thank you. I would love to."
The urge to be with Touya to support him overwhelmed Yukito's wish to hear more, and he slipped into the room, Sakura following.
"There's tea, too," Sakura said, either unaware of or deliberately ignoring the tension in the room. "Who wants the raspberry pudding?"
Yukito took some pudding and sat back down on the couch, keeping a discreet distance between himself and Touya. He was surprised, therefore, when Touya sat down as close to him as he could be without sitting on him. Yukito blinked at him and Touya took advantage of his distraction to steal a bite of his pudding.
"To-ya!"
Touya blinked at him innocently, in everything but the wariness in his face as though it were any other day at the Kinomoto house. "What?"
Yukito revenged himself by stealing a much larger bite of Touya's pudding. As he swallowed it, Touya leaned slightly against his shoulder, meeting Masaki's gaze with just a hint of defiance. The old man looked sad for a moment, then he smiled wistfully. "You are like your mother."
Touya smiled, really smiled, and Yukito thought he might burst with reflected happiness.