[Just a short, random piece from me. I've always loved the Touya/Yukito pairing, but never thought I had anything to say about it. Finally, after reading some translations of later bits of the manga, I found that I did after all. This fic is set sometime after Eriol's conversation with Yue in what's presumably going to be book 12 of the manga, and therefore it contains spoilers for various things that take place before that. Obviously, it's going to include shounen ai elements. They're very mild, though. This is also rather WAFFy, moreso than my fics generally are. You have been warned.
Please see my disclaimer page for copyright information regarding this story. The quotes from the manga were translated by Kristin Olson (Sekai Seifuku, http://www.sekaiseifuku.net). Special thanks go to Kristin O. and K-chan, veritable goddesses of writing, prereading, and translation. Comments are very welcome--take care, and thanks for reading!]
Kiss of Moonlight
By Natalie Baan
Suspended high above the city's sprawling skirts, a white form against the blackness of the sky, Yue stared westward, past the full moon hanging halfway between zenith and horizon. He looked out across the buildings and the dark land that rolled away beyond them until it blurred into shadows at the most distant stretch of his more-than-mortal sight. He looked unblinkingly, as though he could somehow see even further than that: across Japan's spine of mountains to the strait beyond, across other lands, past yet more mountains, deserts and steppes, forests and cities to a place on the far side of the world where the sun was shining.
Folding his wings around himself, he turned away at last.
He glanced down at the low, regular rows of houses far below him, this suburb of the city called Tokyo. The pulse of human life that filled it, for the most part flavored with dreams at this hour, inspired in him a supreme indifference. But there--he descended in a silent rush of feathers and silken cloth toward one house, seemingly no less ordinary than the rest. Yet the bright glow of power there was unmistakable, even though its possessor was sleeping.
His new master.
He'd accepted her, had come to see her as worthy of his service and devotion--even, he was willing to admit, found her quite likable. She wasn't Clow Reed, but it was unfair to expect her to be. She was special to him in her own way. He was perfectly willing to be her protector and friend; that no longer troubled him at all.
In a gossamer swirl, he swept around to the other side of the building and hovered warily, probing the aura of the room before him. Finding its inhabitant asleep, his eyes narrowed.
/That/ person.
The moonlight went in through the bedroom window, and so did Yue, passing through the glass panes as though they didn't even exist. He floated horizontally in the air above the bed, gazing at the motionless form lying there, an arm flung over the dark head, the lips parted slightly, a little breath moving between them. He didn't understand why his other form felt such an attraction to this person--but then, he didn't understand why Clow had given him an other form like that in the first place.
Both of those things were troublesome.
Crossing his arms on his chest, he frowned at the young man. /Kinomoto Touya./ Not unattractive, he supposed, in the way of humans. Intelligent enough, goodhearted but not foolish, with sufficient shadings and layers of complexity to provide a certain measure of interest. There was even a fleeting resemblance to Clow, although Yue suspected it was the straight, black hair and brows and the longing to see something there more than anything else. And the power--even though it had been passed to him, there was still an echo of sympathy, a resonance to that unique note of magical essence, like a ghost of fragrance left behind in an empty room, vaguely enticing.
But Kinomoto Touya was not Clow Reed either.
Yue closed his eyes.
Clow Reed, the magician who had created him, who knew him to the depths of his being, as no other truly could. It was the way he had been made to be: a changeable, moody creature, elusive, at times contrary, like the moon whose glory had been granted life in him. And perhaps prideful--after all, why not, when he and Kerberos had been the pinnacle of all Clow's magic, his last and most sublime creations? But because they had been made and not born, they were limited in their ability to change. He could be nothing but what he was: an esoteric, untrammeled spirit, holding himself always a little aloof, always just out of reach. The thought of existing like that for endless years, never being known, never being seen, had filled him with grief.
Sakura seemed to have a certain insight into him. He wasn't sure whether it was the power of a Card Captor or her own childish wisdom. But sometimes what she thought she saw made no sense to him at all.
--You /are/ like him. No, actually, I think you're the same. In everything.--
He couldn't imagine anyone /less/ like him than his other form. "Tsukishiro Yukito" was as open and guileless as he was secretive, as friendly as he was distant. The idea that he transformed back and forth between that strange, so human self and his real being was disturbing enough. And then, with the feelings that "Yukito" had for this person, feelings that he was quite plainly aware of when he lay in trance within that other mind....
Yue opened his eyes and looked down again at the Card Captor's brother, sprawled asleep in the pale swath of moonlight. Why did "Yukito" like this person so much--why did /he/ find the young man so disquieting? Restlessly Yue brushed his mystical senses along that slumbering form.
--You understand Yukito's heart best, don't you? And Yukito chose Sakura's brother.--
This unsettling person....
* * * * *
Touya found himself slowly drifting up into waking. He'd been dreaming, something about delivering flowers to his school, but the details were already growing vague. He wavered at the edge of sleep, that constant drowsiness trying to pull him back under, but something tugged at him like a soft, scarcely heard voice. He pried his eyes open and was met by the otherworldly sight of Yue, immense wings and all, floating just beneath the ceiling, violet-silver gaze locked onto his face.
"/YOW!/"
At his yelp, those eyes went wide, then blinked affrontedly. After a second of open-mouthed staring, Touya got over the unexpectedness of waking up to a magical creature levitating over his bed. He released his death-grip on the mattress and slumped, rubbing the back of one hand across his face. "Shit. You just about scared me to death."
"/I/ didn't scare you," Yue informed him. "You saw me and got scared by yourself." Shifting his wings, Yue folded his arms and glanced away with a little sniff, as if unable to fathom the peculiar reactions of humans. Amused, Touya studied him: the white spindrift of hair framing that delicate, arrogant face; the pale, exotic clothes, tasseled and jeweled, and the half-flared wings that nearly seemed to glow in the wash of moonlight; the perfect, catlike dignity that he was trying to maintain while lying stretched out in midair, like an improbable kite dangling from the ceiling. That was the thing Touya really couldn't resist about the Yue side of Yukito: no matter what, he took himself so seriously. He was even more fun to harass than Sakura.
"So, why'd you stop by?" Touya drawled.
"No reason." Touya grinned at the other's abruptly evasive expression, and was rewarded with a tiny frown. For some reason, the long drape that looped Yue's right shoulder seemed have resisted that magical weightlessness; it spiraled to the floor next to the bed. Touya batted at it lightly, and that crease between Yue's brows deepened. "/Stop/ that," he commanded. One hand reached out and jerked the cloth upward, flicking it as though to shake off gravity. The drape unfurled next to Yue, billowing out from his side to reach almost all the way across the room. Unrepentant, Touya smirked at him, and he glowered. "Insufferable! Go back to sleep." Annoyed, Yue mantled his wings--and his eyes widened as they hit the ceiling, pushing him in the opposite direction, closer to the bed. As he bobbled, then caught his balance, the end of his hair slithered off his back, spilling into a thick coil on the blanket. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. Grabbing for that hair, Touya was surprised by its incredible lightness, its cool, airy softness whispering across his skin--
"/Let go!/" Long fingers closed around his hand, and he looked up, startled, to see Yue right above him, head angled down toward him like a diving angel. Those iridescent, wintry eyes gazed into his at close range--so close that he could almost count the long, light lashes, could see the pupils contract in alarm as Yue suddenly seemed to realize their proximity. He could feel the minute tremor in Yue as they stared at each other, a catch as though of indrawn breath--and then, with an intense kindling of light, Yue's wings folded around himself, dissolving after an instant to reveal Yukito, eyes closed, still levitating above the bed. As the light faded, so did the force that held Yukito up; he fell onto Touya in an unceremonious tangle of arms and legs--which unfortunately came with hard elbows and knees.
"/Oof!/"
"Wha-- Where?" Waking abruptly, Yukito squirmed around and struggled to right himself, which didn't help Touya's situation. He fought to catch enough breath to say something.
"Yuki," he managed to get out at last. "It's all right. It's me."
"To-ya?" At the sound of Touya's voice, Yukito quieted immediately. He lay still on top of Touya, then sat up, pushing his hair out of his face and trying to straighten nonexistent glasses. "What--oh," he murmured, the realization coming quickly. "I was just him again, wasn't I?"
"Yeah." At Touya's somewhat muffled reply, Yukito peered down at him myopically, as if trying to make out his face in the moonlight.
"To-ya, why do you sound like you're in pain?"
"Because you just fell on me, idiot!" Softening the words, he poked Yukito's forehead gently with one finger. Yukito blinked, then smiled in swift, beatific apology.
"Ah! Sorry!" he exclaimed. Swinging his leg over, he shifted off Touya to sit on the mattress instead. Touya sighed with some relief, feeling himself starting to recover, his heartrate slowing toward normal. Yukito was wearing silky pajamas with--Touya squinted slightly--bunnies on them. As usual when confronted by Yukito's taste for cuteness, Touya didn't know whether to groan or get all goofy inside. He settled for being practical.
"You're not going home like this," he told Yukito. "Stay over. I'll give you something to change into in the morning."
"Okay. If you're sure that it's no problem." Yukito's smile was slightly abashed but calm. He appeared less troubled by the situation's strangeness than by the possibility of inconveniencing Touya more than he already had. Touya paused, looking at his friend: the pale hair bleached paler still beneath the moon, the deceptively soft-seeming, slender body, the warm eyes that met and held his, a question in them.
"It must be hard to just wake up at any time and find yourself in a totally different place," he said at last, quietly. At Yukito's small shrug of acknowledgment and acquiescence, he blew out a sigh. "I wonder what he was thinking of, suddenly disappearing like that?"
Yukito put a finger to his mouth, looking unaccustomedly thoughtful. His eyes closed as though seeking some answer far away inside, then fluttered open, and even by the light of the moon Touya could see the blush coloring his fair skin.
"Oh!" he said, and smiled again--if possible, even more angelically than before, if angels could be a touch impish. Touya stared at him in bemusement as he leaned nearer. "I think it's because.../I'm/ supposed to be the one who does /this./"
The breath of the last word and then Yukito's lips brushed Touya's forehead, as gentle as a ray of light.
"Yuki...."
Those lips moved lower, and Touya shut his eyes, his pulse speeding again: Yukito's mouth innocent and tender on his and him answering its kiss with all those feelings that had lived in him since that first day, that first moment--the first time he'd ever seen this one special person.
* * * * *
The magician Clow Reed had divided himself into two people so that he would no longer have to endure the loneliness of being what he was.
Maybe...maybe the same had been done for the servants that he had left behind.
So that Kerberos, the Guardian Beast of the Clow Cards, had become a small, cute animal, one that a new child-master could love.
And Yue....
Within the seal of "Yukito," Yue gave himself up to the pleasure of the kiss, to the tingle of mouth on mouth, to Touya's hand running up into "Yukito's" hair. There was no feeling of unease, no wrongness to it--only one heart beating fast and strong, like wings opening and closing against the sky.