IMPORTANT!

It's already stated in the summary, but, just in case you missed it, this is not a stand-alone story. This is a sequel to another story I wrote, called "Do you remember love?". You must read that one first, or this won't make any sense to you. You can find the link for it in my profile!

1. Awake

"There is no coincidence in this world... there's only hitsuzen."

...

[Now].

I wake up at the dead of night, that hour just before dawn when the sky is as dark as it can possibly get, and everything is so still and quiet it seems as if life itself was on hold. There are no sounds coming from the house nor from the street; and the night is so pitch black that even though my eyes are open, I can't see anything. I know that I'm awake though, because of the words that still reverberate in my head, and that familiar, unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Waking up has always been somewhat weird for me.

In my dreams, I see things that hide from me when I'm awake. Things that I can only sense, glimpse as if through a dark, thick veil, unfold freely before me; I can see the past, the present and the future with full, complete detail; more vividly and more clearly than when I depend on my human, fleshy senses. I see colors that my eyes can't really capture and my brain can't even begin to process; I hear sounds that aren't meant for human ears or human comprehension, sounds that come from the sky and the stars and the Earth itself; sounds I try to recreate, unsuccessfully, in my waking life, in those countless hours I spend by the piano, in a knowingly hopeless, futile attempt.

In my dreams, I am really myself. Not Clow Reed, Eriol Hiiragizawa or any other; but me, my true self, the bare essence of my being, freed from those names and those faces and those boundaries. Freed from everything. In my dreams I have no powers, and yet I feel more powerful and whole than I could ever imagine in my waking life.

Maybe that's why things always feel so absurd and nonsensical to me, for a few seconds after I wake up. To wake up is to return to a place and a time and a name; whichever they may be at any current moment. Sometimes they feel absolutely random, and I can go to sleep as Eriol Hiiragizawa, for example, with the disturbing feeling that I could just as easily wake up as someone else, in a different age and time, in any of the many bodies I had through my many lives. Waking up is not that different from being born. It throws me back into a place where I can't see those unnamed colors or hear that timeless song anymore; a predictable, limited world where every day the sun goes up and down more or less the same, where seasons follow each other always in the same order and people get born, grow up, consume their short, meaningless lives in a violent urge for things they're doomed to loose, and then inevitably turn back to dust, with such a clockwork precision that makes you wonder if there is a meaning for this colossal stupidity to even happen at all.

I can't seem to find any.

So, I play along with this ridiculous game for some time; until I get too old, too bored or too jaded to keep playing. Magic was a way of rebelling, a form of protest; a way to bend the rules a little, to introduce some inexplicability into that smothering order. But soon I bumped into magic's own rules, into magic's own limits; and I worked hard to break them all, to trespass them, redefine them... and I succeeded, although at a tremendous cost. There was a point when I was able to do almost anything I wanted. And yet... I wasn't satisfied.

On the long run, magic had only served as a source of amusement. It never gave me fulfillment, never really gave me what I was looking for. What I'm looking for is something I can only glimpse when I'm asleep, something I can't even begin to explain, because it's as impossible to capture with words as those colors and sounds I can only see in my dreams.

But why am I telling you all of this now, if you can't really hear me?

Maybe it's because I want you to understand; maybe it's because deep down I know you can, in fact, hear me. Or because even deeper, deeper down, I know it doesn't really matter if you hear me or not.

I just need to tell you. Because, unknowingly, you have become such an important piece in this game. The most important piece. The only important piece.

It's only fair that I try to explain you why.

So I wake up in the dead of night, feeling that vague, unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach and those ominous, fatidic words still reverberating in my head; and I'm unable to see or hear anything, but, unlike any other time I've woken up, this time the world around me doesn't feel random nor absurd anymore. Even though the clarity, the boundless lucidness from my dream-life is quickly fading away, leaving me only as keen and insightful as any other human being can be (which is not much), I still somehow manage to retain the feeling that this name, this body, this world are the ones I was supposed to wake up to from the very beginning; that this is it, the moment I had been waiting for my entire life, all of my entire lives. That everything that happened before was just a preparation for this. Even if I can't quite remember what "this" is.

There is no coincidence in this world.

In the dark, I run my hand over the bedsheets by my side, looking for you; but you're not there. I can feel some of your warmth, of your scent still on them; a subtle trace of your presence that lets me know that you were, indeed, here, besides me, maybe a moment ago. And then a very human, idiotic instinct makes me look towards the bathroom door; pointlessly searching for that line of light on the floor, that line that would tell me that everything is okay, that there is a logical reason for your absence, that the world is still rotating on its axis and in a few hours the sun will rise and it would be just another ordinary day; the line that would give me the reassurance I need to stop thinking crazy and go back to sleep. But the room is immersed in such a pitch black darkness; and there's no line of light on the floor, there's no line of light anywhere; and I start to feel like a chill on my skin, on the pit of my stomach when I realize that the bathroom light isn't the only light I can't find. There's another luminous thread, a finer, more subtle one, that is hiding from me as well. I feel a gust of cold air against my cheek, and I notice that the bedroom door is open.

The only thing is hitsuzen.

It would be impossible to explain you the twinge of fear, of dread in the back of my stomach, so dreadful precisely because I can't really explain why it's there; like the aftertaste of some intense déjà vu that I can't seem to recall. As if something inside me knew what this meant and what is about to happen but had forgot about it; left with only the certainty that there is something ominous in your strange, unjustified absence, in this bottomless silence I find when I reach for you and that I can't really understand.

Where are you?

Why aren't you by my side?

Why can't I sense you?

I turn on the light, with the unsettling feeling that this is something I've already lived. I get up of bed and shiver when I feel the cool air stroking my half-naked body. I quickly get myself into some robe, and go out, to the hallway, although I'm not really sure what for. All I know is that you're not here and I must find you, it's imperative that I find you; even if I had to do it the hard, crude way, with my clumsy feet and eyes and hands; now that your radiance, your luminous presence is somehow hidden from me, faded or obfuscated by something, and all I can find is this disconcerting, unfathomable silence when I try to reach you. I don't want to ponder about the meaning of this; I just want to see you, to hear you, to soothe down this anxiety that has started to revolve inside my chest with every passing second.

But what I see when my eyes finally get used to the dim light of the hallway is anything but soothing; and that one, dreadful word comes immediately to my mind.

Hitsuzen.

You're there, standing in the middle of the corridor, almost indistinguishable amidst such darkness. I barely catch a glimpse of you, of the white fabric you wear, of your bare feet touching the floor, walking away from me and the bedroom, and I have to turn on the lights so that the darkness doesn't swallow you. But it's only when I turn them on, that I truly realize that something really non-logical, really bad is going on. I see you walking away, I see your hand touching the wall, touching the pictures that hang from it as you move forwards; and a distressing knot forms in my chest, because now I'm sure I've already lived this before.

No.

Not again.

Is it real this time? Is that really you in there?

For a moment, I doubt if I'm awake. Because this feels like some kind of dream inside a dream, like some kind of endless nightmare I can't seem to wake up from.

But it only lasts a moment. Because deep down, I know that I'm awake, fully awake, maybe for the first time ever. And I know I can't hide inside my dreams anymore.

It's time.

…

[At the beginning].

It all started that night, that strange night of that strange day when I left her at Tsukimine Temple.

I mean, in truth it had started a long, really long time ago; so long it was impossible to say how or when that mechanism that had been working so silently in the background had really began to move. But I do know that I became aware for the first time that something big was building up, the night of that strange day.

The night that she came to me.

.

I had spent the rest of that that grey, cold, melancholic afternoon wandering around; a silent witness of the rubble that terrible storm had left around the entire town. Fallen trees, flooded streets… even a squashed car under a light pole that couldn't withstand the rage of the wind. And dirt, and mud, and leaves and branches everywhere… and no one, virtually not a soul on the streets. The entire city looked deserted, as if it was the day after some kind of strange apocalypse, and if I wasn't able to sense other people's presences, it would have felt like walking through a ghost town. That gray and isolated city, so different from the busy and colorful Tomoeda I remembered, made me feel some kind of weird apprehension; as if I was the sole survivor of some sudden and unexpected cataclysm…

And wasn't I, really? Wasn't I always the survivor, the only survivor of all cataclysms, the big and the small ones; even the unexpected, everyday cataclysm (yet not because of that any less horrifying) that was death? Wasn't my life always this, exactly this; an endless roaming amongst rubble and debris from some wreckage that always passed me by, not really touching me; yet always taking everything away?

Damn, Eriol, stop it already. This train of thought never leads you anywhere good; and today you have no muse to sing you a song and make it better.

I sighed. No, I wasn't the only survivor of this particular catastrophe. There was another soul in this god-forsaken town, whose presence stood out from the rest with an unusual vividness; there was someone else amongst all of that rubble, someone who walked with a more determined pace than mine. If only I could get close to that person, if I could hold her hand and walk with her, I would have felt more at ease. I would have known that somehow we were going find shelter and survive, together, and that this gray, dead city would eventually come back to life and fill with colors again. That soul, the only one that could resonate with mine, the only one I had found in such, such a long time that was able to understand my lonely wandering. The only one I really cared about feeling and which gave some meaning to my presence in this ghost city. There was nothing else I wanted to do, as I languidly roamed about, but to feel that ethereal, thin thread that stretched between us; to sense it was still there, even if she wasn't by my side… And that was exactly what I shouldn't do, what I had to avoid at any cost if I didn't want to lose my mind. Seek her. Remember her. Dream her.

She would come back, I was sure; the thread stretched and stretched but didn't cut. At some point it would shorten up and we would meet again; she would return with those amethyst eyes and their carefully concealed fire, and I'd get to lose myself in them again, and touch her porcelain skin, and run my fingers through that hair like raven feathers, so dark and soft and bringer of such irresistible, terrifying omens... She would come back, I knew; but I didn't know when or how, and thinking about it wouldn't do me any good, obsessing about it wouldn't speed up her return.

I came home at some indefinite hour between dusk and nightfall, trying to shake off the cold that had gotten into my very bones and dragging a tiredness like that of death. I couldn't understand the downheartedness that had taken over me; after all, this was what I chose. I was sure to have done the right thing, the only thing that could be done, really… No, that wasn't entirely true; I could also have done something else, thousands of something elses; I could have not returned to Japan, I could have not looked for her, and once found, once in my arms, I could have held her and never let her go, I could have ignored the path she had chosen and convinced her to stay with me, to turn her back on everything; I could have turned my back on everything too and seize the opportunity to make her mine, really mine. But I didn't, because deep down I knew it would be unreal, I knew it would never fulfill me. She wasn't mine; she chose her own path and all I could do now was wait, wait for the day when her path would lead her back to me, in the hopes that when it did, it would be because she chose so. Because she had chosen me.

Would she ever…?

No, stop. Right now, she had her own things to sort out, and God, wasn't I becoming an expert on women who always had their own things to sort out?

Shit.

It was inevitable, to follow that train of though and to see that other ominous, ghost-like image forming before of my eyes again; it was like a conditioned reaction. Then I had no other choice than to walk by that portrait, that annoying portrait that for some reason I was unable to get rid of, and stare for a moment at those reddish, unfathomable, catlike eyes; to look at them and shrug my shoulders in a gesture that could almost be of disdain, and then keep walking, assuring myself that the old ghosts had been exorcised. At least until next time.

Women who are out of the ordinary always have their own agenda; you should know by now, you dumbass mage. You can't have them; no one can. They won't settle comfortably by your side, they're more like a force of nature, like the rain; they come and go when they please, and they can catch you unguarded in the middle of the street at any random moment and soak you through. They can be as gentle as they can be wild and destructive, and you don't get to choose when they fall on you.

To me, love had always been like that, more or less. Something rare and bittersweet; an endless counterpoint of holding close and letting go. Each one I ever loved had gave me something amazing, but also took just as much away from me; and after so many years and so many times and so many lost ones, I felt as if I was left with almost nothing I could call my own, but memories. What could I possibly have to offer to her? And how has she managed to, without any magic, cast such a spell on me? What was this feeling I had every time I was around her, this ridiculous premonition?

I liked her, I liked her a lot; but I could deal with that, that was easy to understand. What was not to like about her? She was gorgeous, and smart, and kind, and lovely, and complex, and so, so many other things… But this, this other thing I felt, this was what troubled me, because I could really not explain it; because it had nothing to do with all of those things. This vague, indefinite feeling that there was something else about her, something that set her apart from all those others I had loved in my many lives… That she had a power in her hands to give me something, to show me something nobody else ever could. Something that was the exact thing I had been looking for since always. Something I still didn't know what it was, but it reminded me a lot of what I felt when I was in my dreams.

Freedom.

It was her eyes, I knew. There was something about those eyes that just told me that, if I plunged deep enough, I could find in them the answers I've been looking for my entire life. My whole bunch of entire lives. But I hadn't dared to do so, not yet; and I'd found wonderful excuses for that: because the time wasn't right, because she wasn't ready, because she had things she needed to do first, because she wasn't really mine. All of them perfectly good, valid reasons; yet they also served the purpose to hide the most important one, the one I didn't want to see: that it was me who wasn't ready to do what needed to be done in order for that miracle, for any miracle, to happen.

A leap of faith.

In the end, the final reason was: because I was scared. And that was kind of annoying.

.

It was late, and I, locked up in the music room, couldn't stop pulling furious notes from that old piano; notes that were, and at the same time weren't, those from her song.

I didn't want to, I really didn't want to play that melody, I didn't want to do anything that could call her, that could invoke her; but my fingers insisted on disobeying me, and unexpectedly those chords seemed to appear in the middle of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody; startling me just like a rainstorm catches you by surprise in the middle of the street, and I could hear her sweet voice reverberating in that music room again, saying do you remember, do you remember... And I just couldn't not remember, and I couldn't stop thinking about the rain; in my mind that song would always be connected to the rain, and the troubled look in her violet eyes and the water dripping from her hair and her clothes; that song was the rain, and also the thunder, thunders like those that woke me up in the middle of the dark, just to find her asleep by my side, and the rain hitting my windowpanes and the water that slid down her hair, her body as I soaped her up and pressed her against the bath tiles, and the sound of the rain lulling us in bed as she snuggled up against me and slowly fell asleep… All of that was that song for me now, a sweet and irresistible melancholy, and its melody was like the rain, falling on you suddenly and soaking you through; it leaked from my fingers and fell on my piano keys and soaked me of her.

And I could have been like that for hours, trapped by the song and the rain and the memories, drinking that sweet melancholy as if it was the most exquisite wine.

But, I couldn't.

Because suddenly, something happened. An intense, overwhelming feeling that pulled me out from that orgy of reminiscence and made my heart jump inside my chest. A completely absurd, unexpected, astonishing feeling.

She's coming back!

It felt impossible, yet I had no doubt; it was as if, in a moment, the invisible thread between us had suddenly tensed up, pulling from my chest; as if there was a thousand beams of light bursting from her and moving towards me, flying in my direction. She was on her way, I was sure; I could feel her presence growing closer and more intense by the minute; in a more subtle way I could sense her reaching out for me, and I, I couldn't get out of my shock. I would have waited for days, months, even years for her return; I'd never thought it could happen like this, just now, just a few hours after we parted ways.

Why?

I could feel my heart beating fast as my fingers stubbornly continued to press the piano keys, and my mind tried to remain focused on the music I was playing, to not let myself be overcome by impatience. But I couldn't stop thinking, wondering. Why now? Why like this? And why can I feel her presence growing closer and larger at such a fast rate, while my descendant's is becoming smaller and more distant with every passing moment? What on Earth has happened? In any case, she would arrive soon, it was just a matter of time, and then I would be able to ask her; but minutes stretched like hours and I couldn't really focus on the music anymore; not with this tingling on the back of my stomach and this anxiety and perplexity growing inside my chest. It was unbelievable what this woman did to me; I couldn't remember to have felt like this in so, so many years. Not since…

She's here.

I could almost hear her, getting out of a cab, going through the gate that I had left conveniently, unusually open, as if in some level I had expected or hoped for this to happen; and, unable to stop myself, I got up from the piano bench, leaving the melody unfinished, and walked towards the front door. There wasn't anything in my mind besides the feeling of her, of her presence that radiated light and warmth in that cold and dark night; but suddenly I noticed an odd change in it, as if…

I opened the door in the exact moment she hesitated before ringing the bell, and I found myself standing before her startled, confused face. She looked freakishly pale, her eyes reddened and misty and her lips a bit shaky; and my heart clenched when I saw her in such state.

I wanted to ask her a million questions, I wanted to know why was she here, what had happened with Sakura, why did she look so beaten up; I wanted to ask her what had meant that moment of hesitation, what would have happened if, instead of opening the door, I had waited a few moments more. Would she have rang the bell, or would she have turned around and left? But as I looked at her, I realized that I couldn't ask any of those things, because none of them really mattered; the only thing that mattered were her eyes that stared at me with such dismay, and her mouth that opened, like trying to form words without success, as if she desperately wanted to say something, anything; and all my questions and worries faded away, disappeared like by magic, and I knew without a doubt that there was only one thing that I could do.

I rested a finger over her lips, shushing her as my other hand reached for hers, and pulled. Softly, so very softly. She looked at me for a moment; her eyes looking startled and somehow relieved at the same time. She took one hesitant step, and then, to my surprise... threw herself into my arms.

How can I possibly explain what I felt then, as I stood there, at my porch, holding her to me as if she had just returned from the other side of the world, as if she had just came home after years and years of wandering around... And even though I still couldn't quite believe it, I knew it was real; I knew these were her arms tightening around my back, this was her face hiding against my shoulder, this was her body melting into my embrace, and I realized it didn't matter if I believed it or not, nor what the reason for this was. The only thing that mattered, was her.

She was back. She had returned to me. I couldn't give a damn about anything else.

I held her for a short moment; until I felt her mumble something against my shoulder.

"What?" I asked.

She whispered again, this time near my ear, as if she was ashamed or afraid someone could hear her; and this time I caught what she said, and I couldn't stop this inexplicable feeling of joy from forming in my chest. Crazy girl, you and your sudden, lovely, ridiculous shyness. Unable to stop the smile that was forming on my lips, I pushed her away a little to stare at her teary eyes; and how on Earth was I going to explain to her that that thing she seemed almost afraid to ask me was the thing I've been longing for the entire day?

"Silly." I just said, as I brushed a lock of hair away from her face. "Of course you can stay here tonight. You can stay all the nights you want."

.

And so, by some inexplicable twist of fortune, she was at my house again; a scenario so unlikely only a few hours before, that I still had trouble believing it. She had mumbled something about wanting to take a bath, to recover from the cold of the street and to clear up her mind; and so I was in my bedroom, waiting for her and smelling the subtle but sweet aroma of roses seeping from behind the door of my en-suite bathroom (apparently, the bath salts she had chosen this time), and making use of all my willpower to not start picturing her there, to not treat my eyes with the wonderful vision of her naked, wet skin amongst all the foam and the steam… Because for a mage as powerful as myself, a door wasn't a barrier of any kind, nor any distance could really prevent me from seeing whatever I wanted to see, when I wanted to see it. So I stayed there, on my armchair, lethargically reading by the fireplace and determined to keep my mind away from the soft splashing sounds and the subtle changes I could sense in her as she enjoyed that so needed moment of intimacy, of pleasant solitude with the immensity of her own body.

It was odd; how little by little these abilities of mine were starting to annoy me. I was so used to feel other people's presence, to sense even the tiniest changes in their auras and know (more or less) where they were and how they were feeling, that I had seldom questioned it before. It was an unconscious thing, as normal to me as breathing, and it was undoubtedly a very helpful ability; it had proven so countless times in the past. And yet, however… when it came to her, I couldn't help but feel weird about it, like… kind of guilty. As if I was spying on her again, like I did that night I came back to Japan, but in a closer, even more intrusive way. Did I really had any right to know how she was feeling, if she didn't want to tell me? It wasn't that I could know her feelings for sure or with total accuracy; it was merely a hint, a clue what I got to perceive, it was more of an agitation in my own energy that responded to hers, but still, it felt unfair. I couldn't stop thinking that she didn't have such an advantage, and somehow it felt as if having it wasn't an advantage at all; it was just something that set us apart, a constant reminder of how uneven we were, of how unlike me she was; an irritating reminder that she was just another mortal girl I happened to like, one that could never truly understand me and that would eventually turn to dust and disappear, like all the others.

And yet, nonetheless…

If I managed, even for a short while, to turn it off, to dispose of that sense just like a regular human would put on a blindfold to dispose of sight for a while, and be lead only by sound, or smell; if I managed to stop sensing her in that clear, distinctive way only magical beings such as myself could… Then I started glimpsing something else, something that had been there the whole time and yet, somehow, I had missed; hidden by the radiance of her presence, waiting to be discovered, experienced. And she became a completely new territory that I had never imagined or transited before, where everything felt different, more vivid, more intense; and at the same time more fragmented and enigmatic and mysterious. If I could shut down her presence, even for a second, her entire self became something very different, something larger; a bottomless mystery that I was dying to unravel. And the only way do that was in the dark. Then, like a man who has just gone blind and starts discovering the world with his other senses, I had to pay attention to the tiniest details to decipher her, like the smell of roses coming from the bathroom, or the slight sounds her body made when it moved in the water; and try to figure out what all of those little things meant, and be able to put up with some lack of certainty, and sometimes even with the most absolute cluelessness. It was like peeking into an abyss; scary, yet so tantalizing at the same time... like some kind of return to innocence; but, to what innocence could possibly return someone who had always known too much, seen too much, understood too much? What innocence could recover someone who never had any?

Idiot… always dreaming with lost paradises that deep down, you know never really existed.

The bathroom door opened, pulling me out of my musings. I looked up, and suddenly everything was so much more than rose aroma and splashing sounds... And what a vision it was; her bare feet with red painted toenails (it was the first time I noticed the color of her nails), her long, soft, slender legs, almost entirely exposed; her frame standing out interestingly underneath the fabric of those old shorts and t-shirt (clothes she had borrowed from me, to not bother Nakuru again, and thank goodness for her thoughtfulness!); her hand holding a towel as she tried to dry her wet hair that fell messily over her back and shoulders; and her face… her face was an entire chapter on itself. The colors had returned to her, to her cheeks, to her lips; the dismayed look had disappeared from her eyes, which stared at me radiantly, and the most amazing thing of them all: there was a smile on her face.

"Feeling better?" I asked, unable to stop my own smile from appearing on my face.

"Yes… thank you. I really needed that bath. Don't worry, I'm alright now." she said. I hadn't asked her anything, but she must have noticed the concern in my eyes from earlier. "Thank you for letting me stay here... again. I just couldn't go home tonight, after... well..."

Sakura. Of course. It was always about that, wasn't it? But now I couldn't help but start wondering again about what had happened between them after I left her at Tsukimine Temple; about the reason for her return and her presence here tonight, about my heir's presence that felt more and more distant with every moment. It seemed that the most extreme, drastic things had happened in those few hours, and yet I couldn't ask her about them; I couldn't make her face all those things again, not when she had just sought rest and shelter in my house. In me.

"Do you want to… talk about it?" I cautiously said.

She just smiled.

"Not really. I hope you don't mind, but... it's the last thing I want to do."

"Okay, then. Would you rather go downstairs and eat something?"

"I'm not really hungry, and I'm not dressed for going downstairs anyway... I think I'd rather stay here... if you don't mind. I'm sorry, I don't want to be a bother or anything. I'm making such a nasty habit of coming here uninvited…"

"Yeah, I really don't know what I'm going to do about you, girl. I had solid plans of sitting around tonight, which now are totally screwed."

She chuckled.

"I'm sorry." she said with remorseful eyes. "But, hear this: how about if you and me sit around… together?"

"Humm…" I said, trying to look pensive and as serious as possible. "You have the craziest ideas. Okay, we could give it a try, Daidouji."

She just smiled, and started walking around the room.

"You know... I never noticed what a nice room this was before. It's really cozy, and you have so many interesting things in here…" she said, looking around with a bit of curiosity. "How could I not notice before?"

I knew how. The first time she'd been here she was drunk; the second time it was too dark, and the third time… the third time all kinds of other things happened, things that were way more interesting than the load of old stuff I had in my room and that she was now staring at with growing interest.

"Do you mind?" she said, as she grabbed one of the things she was referring to, to examine it better.

"Knock yourself out." I said, and as she walked around the room studying every corner of it, I dedicated myself to study her. To have her here again, walking around my bedroom in my t-shirt, barefoot and with her hair all wet, was just so weird, so unexpected and so wonderful that I couldn't stop looking at her and wonder if it was for real, if she was really there, if this wasn't another one of my dreams from which I never wanted to wake up.

It felt like a dream. Not only because of the implausibility of it all; but because of the odd feeling I was starting to get, a feeling that I seemed to recall from those long, revealing, vivid dreams of mine; those dreams in which I was really myself, in which I could feel and sense things that escaped my normal comprehension. As if everything was more solid, more definite than before, yet at the same time could change into any form and any shape at any given moment. As if those colors and sounds I found only in my dreamland were actually here; right here, right now, in my bedroom, and I could sense them there, vivid and vibrant and just underneath the surface, waiting for me to see them, and all I needed to do was to open my eyes, really open them, and...

What on Earth was this feeling?

She seemed to ignore me completely, as she observed every inch of the room with an air of intense interest; stopping from time to time before some object that caught her attention, taking it in her hands and studying it. I did have some weird stuff in there, amongst the tons of crap from different times I had scattered all over the house. But the real precious things were undoubtedly here, in my room, where I could have them close to me and see them and touch them; they were things that had belonged to me or my loved ones in other lives, things that meant something; most of them magical items of some sort disguised as normal things, such as hand mirrors, watches, books and statues; portraits, chandeliers and even a small ornamented chest that contained the most valuable object in my possession. And she walked around the room so casually, looking at them, touching them, fascinated by them even though I knew she couldn't feel their magic, and it was such a strange scene that seemed right out from one of my dreams; I looked at her in awe, half expecting she would turn into a butterfly and fly away through the window any moment now, and God, I swear if that would had happened I wouldn't have felt any more amazed than I already was.

"You know…" she said with a dreamy voice as she ran her fingers over the ornamented chest lid, and for a moment I felt some kind of odd nervousness, although it only lasted a moment. "I like really old things, like the ones you have in here. They always have such interesting stories."

"Oh, now I understand what you saw in me." I said wryly.

"Idiot." she said with a giggle. "You're not that old. Not as much as you think you are, anyway. Like now, for instance… you look extremely young." she said, staring at me with a strange, enigmatic look in her eyes.

"Well, you know, people do tell me I look a few centuries younger than I really am. Good genes, I guess."

"I wasn't talking about your looks. I meant your eyes. They say age really shows in the eyes, and yours right now… they look at me like those of a teenager would."

"Really?" I said, between surprised and amused. "And how is that?"

She held my gaze with that strange gleam in her eyes, and smiled.

"As if you never had a half-dressed woman in your bedroom before."

That I did not expect; it caught me off guard and left me almost speechless.

"Is that so?"

"Yes... but don't worry. I know it's not true, but it actually... feels kind of nice."

She said that with that smile on her face, and suddenly it was as if thousands of years were gone from my shoulders at a stroke of a pen; disappeared, just like that. In the deepest astonishment, I realized that I had, indeed, been looking at her like that. And that it had, oddly, felt nice for me as well.

She continued looking around the room, going through my stuff once again, until suddenly, she saw the old record player that was almost hidden in a corner of the room, buried underneath a huge pile of records. She went towards it, grabbed some of the records from the pile and started looking at them with seeming interest.

"Jazz records? But, these are not from your time… I mean, you didn't… you never lived in that time, did you?"

"Hey, can't a person like good music without necessarily having to live in the age it was composed?" I protested.

"Of course. And now that I think about it, jazz suits you just nicely. I can totally picture you listening to these records, late at night, sitting on that armchair, with a glass of wine in your hand and a head full of brooding thoughts. Am I right?"

I frowned a little and grunted. Because she was right, of course.

"Don't get cocky, girl. You don't have me all figured out, you know?"

She let out another one of those vivid, gleeful chuckles I was starting to get to know in her, against my will, I felt myself answering with a smile of my own.

"But I'm getting closer, am I not? I just learned a few things about you; for instance, that you like old things too. Because this record player isn't a memento from another life; you bought it on this one, when vinyls were already outdated, instead of getting a digital player like normal people do." she said, seemingly amused and what looked like sort of... pleased?

"Well, I'm not normal people, am I? I think that these can give a much, much nicer experience than digital ones would ever do." I said.

"Really? Oh, then I have to try them. May I?" she asked, pulling one of the records out of its case and lifting the record player's lid.

I nodded.

I watched in delight as this child of digital age tried to figure out how analog devices worked; and was very pleased to see the whole turntable, tone arm ceremony -although somewhat clumsily- executed in a more than decent amount of time. Soon, the room was flooded by the scratching sound of the needle hitting the vinyl, a sound I so much loved to hear, because it was the sound of anticipation, the promise of great things to come; it reminded me that even the most beautiful things were created from imperfection. Suddenly, the sound of an oboe, hinting the beginning of a suggestive rhythm; soon followed by some violins and a contrabass that created a bittersweet harmony, and I saw her close her eyes and let herself be carried away by the sounds. And then… a voice started to sound and vibrate in the air; a sensual, captivating female voice that drawled words and syllables through that music and set the melody with an unmatched feeling… And as the sounds surrounded me, I stood there entranced, looking at her standing by the record player with her eyes closed, her shape outlining in the background of my room, my things, with a vividness and a clearness I'd never seen before... almost as if she was glowing.

Suddenly she turned around and looked at me with an odd, gleaming look in her eyes and a shy-ish smile on her face.

"This music… really gets into you. Like it wants to be danced. Don't you think?"

"Yes." I said, somewhat surprised. "It does."

"Then… why don't we?"

I felt a half-smile painting itself all over my face as I got up and walked towards her, and offered her my hand. She smiled, but I saw a little pink on her cheeks as she grabbed it.

"I... don't really know how."

"That's okay." I said, pulling from her hand. "I do."

And suddenly I was sliding my arm around her waist and drawing her towards me, until we were close, so close that our faces almost touched, and her arm went around my shoulder, and her eyes set on mine and the lovely smile on her face as she let me lead her and my other hand held hers; and we plunged into an abyss of sweet sounds and agonizing bliss; because nothing could ever be as strange and at the same time as perfect as this, as being there, so close one from the other and letting the music take us over as Ella's voice kept singing melancholically to a blue moon, and it seemed as if she sang just for us, and despite what she had said, her feet and her whole body moved in perfect sync with the music; they seemed to merge into the rhythm and flow with the cadence of Ella's voice and the wonderful sounds of the strings and the winds… Music always seemed to have that effect on her, as if it transported her to a different reality, and I joyfully let myself be carried away with her. It was impossible to resist the witchcraft of her eyes on mine and the voice that melted in my ears and the scent of roses coming from her skin, from her hair; and as I danced with her I realized in awe that everything was as clear and distinct as the aroma of roses; the sounds, the colors, everything seemed so much richer than usual, everything was so vivid and vibrant as I've never experienced in my waking life before; the violet of her eyes so much more violet, her hair blacker than the darkest hour of night, with the soft lights highlighting on it, her lips like dew-drenched berries displaying the most amazing shades of pink and red, and the shadows playing on her face as she moved, in a game of showing and concealing, and it was as if everything was brightened up around her; as if the colors of my room became alive, with reds that were redder than blood and greens like forest leaves and blues that reminded me of the most beautiful open sky… And it was all so weird, almost dreamlike and yet so real at the same time, it felt so true and real as only dreams could ever feel.

And for once, I didn't want to rationalize it, to think about what all of this could mean; I just wanted to feel her, not with my magic but with my bodily, human senses, and let myself be dazed by this amazing oasis that had been given to me. In a rapture, I drew her a little closer, and felt her head against my shoulder and her arm going tighter around my neck; I felt the wet freshness of her hair against my shoulder, and the sweet scent of her skin, and the warmth of her body radiating from underneath the fabric of my t-shirt, and her soft, rhythmic heartbeats against my chest as our feet kept slowly moving with the music and a strange, unexpected feeling overwhelmed me and left me in a state of utter astonishment.

I felt happy. Happy like I couldn't remember ever feeling before; happy like a nineteen year old boy who had the girl of his dreams in his arms could be. Happy in its most untainted, simplest, purest form. In that moment there was nothing but her; there were no thoughts, no heaviness from hundreds of years of experiences and loss, no nostalgia for things long gone, no yearning for unreachable dreamlands; because everything I wanted, everything I could ever possibly need, I was having here, now. The rest had been erased by some mysterious miracle, and for a lapse as short or as long as those moments outside of time can be, those moments that can only be measured in breaths or heartbeats, I felt young again, young for real; I was really a nineteen year old holding his sweetheart in his arms, with no memory of ever being the reincarnation of any powerful wizard.

I think that was the moment when I knew for sure, without any room for doubt, that this was not just some other mortal I happened to like.

This one could turn my entire world around. This one could become the one I could never live without again.

I was shocked; it was the first time something like this happened to me. I mean; this thing people call fascination, or even love, I've felt lots of times, plenty of times before; and I also knew that sooner or later it had to end. The feeling would eventually fade out, or the person would eventually go away or… even in the best case scenario, they would eventually die. One way or another, I always knew it was something I could only savor for a limited amount of time, and that would leave me a hole in my chest when it was over. Such was my life, such was my curse; I had learned to accept it and resign to it, even though I could never really manage to prevent it from tainting even my most joyous moments with a certain shade of bitterness, almost imperceptible but always, unavoidably there.

However, now…

"You were right." I felt her voice vibrating against my neck. "This is a nicer experience."

"You said you couldn't dance." I muttered into her hair, feeling a smile forming in my lips. "You little liar."

"I also said that I wanted to sit around with you… I guess I'm lying a lot today." she replied, staring at me with an amused look in her eyes.

However, now…

Her lips searched for mine, and as the music dragged us into a different kind of dance, but just as nice and swinging and delightful, I couldn't help but hear Ella's words in amazement, and then there suddenly appeared before me the only one my arms will ever hold; and how could that be a coincidence, how, if as I drew her against me and kissed her, and that old t-shirt slowly fell into the floor I could only feel the pure, untainted happiness and expectation of a young lad who beholds for the first time ever the miracle of his beloved's naked skin; and run my hands down her body and marvel at the feel of it and how it was all so fresh and so new; as if I truly never had any other in my arms, as if I had never loved and lost who knew how many already; as if all of them had been her and in each one of them I had loved her and only her, without even knowing... As if I'd never truly been anyone else but who I was now, Eriol Hiiragizawa, a pretentious, big-headed English guy (as she had called me once), and everything else had been just a senseless dream or a nightmare, a nightmare from which only like this, holding her so close to me and losing myself in her arms and that endless abyss that was her body, I could finally wake up.

…

[The first time].

It had started more or less the same; to wake up in the dark and not find you by my side; the open door, the dark hallway... Getting up and going there, looking for you, and watching your whitish shape disappear amidst so much darkness. That feeling of strangeness that quickly gave way to bewilderment; a bewilderment that became deeper and deeper by the moment...

I remember turning the lights on and seeing you, just like I see you now, walking through that corridor, your fingers barely brushing against the portraits that hanged on the wall. But then I didn't know what was going on, and I merely tried to call your name, softly; still thinking that there could be a normal explanation for your strange behavior. Sleepwalking, perhaps…

But you didn't stop, nor turned around to look at me; you just kept walking as if you didn't hear me. So I called you again, louder this time, but you kept ignoring me, as deaf or as indifferent as a vision or a statue could be. Then I went towards you, trying to ease down the bit of anxiety that had started to form in my stomach. I laid a hand on your arm, but you just shook it off as if it was an annoying fly, and kept walking. So I stood in front of you, laid both hands firmly on your shoulders and tried to make you look at me.

"Wait." I said. "What's wrong with you? Where are you going?"

Then you looked up, and God, I can't ever possibly express with words the cold that filled my chest when I saw your clouded, darkened eyes; eyes that looked through me without really seeing me, as if they were blind or perhaps staring at something that was way beyond me. And it was even worse when your lips opened and the words, sounding with that weird voice that wasn't really yours, sprouted from them.

"I must go. It's... calling me."

A feeling of unreality overcame me. I still get goosebumps when I recall it; you trying to keep walking, as if you could go through me, as if you were a ghost; and me stupidly asking who or what was that it was calling you. And then, suddenly, to feel that strange aura that surrounded you, and that gave that strange glow to your skin and that discarded for good the stupid hope of somnambulism, or any other normal explanation.

Magic.

It's goddamn magic!

I knew immediately, and my heart froze with dread.

Who the hell could have possibly done this to you?

How the hell could have they done it?

And more importantly... why?

"Tomoyo…" I muttered, trying to reassure you, or myself, I wasn't really sure. "Tomoyo, can you hear me? I don't know who did this to you, or why… but I will find out. And I will fix it. I'm the most powerful mage in existence; I will find a way to wake you up. Tomoyo. Tomoyo?"

Then you spoke again in that voice, and it was even more horrifying than before.

"That's not... that's not... me." I heard you mutter, and before I could even react, your hand went underneath the fabric of my housecoat, and with a quick yank you ripped the chain I was wearing around my neck, that chain I hadn't worn for a really long time and that I couldn't even remember putting on that night, that chain that had…

"What are you doing?" I exclaimed, perplexed.

It all happened in a second. The light flowing from your body, blinding me for a second; that enormous, supernatural strength sprouting from you and your arms pushing me away with an unprecedented violence. My body thrown into the air and my head smashing against the wall, and the blinding pain that for a few moments didn't let me think. To open my eyes in the floor with difficulty, all dizzy and shaken, and to realize in sudden horror where it was that you were going.

The door at the end of the corridor.

God, how to explain you the dread that overwhelmed me when I saw you there, wielding that thing that shone unconceivably in your hand, and your lips whispering something I could not hear; and knew that I wouldn't get there in time, that I wouldn't be able to stop you, that it was the end; and that futile scream escaping from my throat as my hand reached out for you helplessly.

"DON'T!"

And then to see that door open, to see the darkness bursting from it and swallowing you and me and the hallway and everything, and suddenly everything was shadows, an enormous, never-ending shadow that engulfed and consumed everything, and there was no longer floor nor ceiling nor walls nor anything, only a shapeless void, an endless nothingness, and amidst that nothingness I could hear your desperate, atrocious shriek; and I knew it would the last sound from you I would ever hear.

And the scream escaped from my throat, as that nothingness dragged me away and the pain ripped my body and my chest like a thousand knives.

…

I opened my eyes in the dark, with my breath choked up in my chest and a cold sweat running down my back and my heart beating out of control. Waking up had always been weird for me, but never as weird as this time; when without having really come out of the fogginess and the confusion from the dream, not completely awake yet and not even sure of where I was, I looked for you by my side and didn't find you. How to explain you what I felt then, that icy thing freezing my chest when I reached for your presence and couldn't find it anywhere; as if it had disappeared, as if you had ceased existing. And how to explain you the relief and perplexity that flooded my veins, when my hands suddenly touched you in the dark, your warm, soft skin, your silky hair, and I felt you move and snuggle against me as I sat up and turned on the lamp on the nightstand and looked at your sleeping form with unbelieving eyes.

You're here.

You're alive.

And you're here!

Only then I could breathe normally again, and realize that that horror hadn't really happened, that it was just a dream and that you were really here, here, where you were supposed to be. In body and presence, by my side, and so alive and beautiful I had to refrain myself from hugging you, from squeezing you into my arms so hard that it would almost hurt you; just to make sure that you were still breathing.

I contented myself with just stroking your face, your shoulder, but my hands were still shaky, and I could still feel an unsettling anxiety inside. Why couldn't I sense your presence when I woke up? What the hell had happened in those brief moments, before I touched you in the dark and realized that you were here, by my side? And more importantly… What the hell was that dream?

Still pretty shaken and kind of befogged, I got up of the bed slowly, trying to not disturb you, and walked towards the bathroom. Like a sleepwalker, not really seeing anything, I turned on the light and closed the door behind me; turned on the tap and splashed my face with cold water. And then I looked up into the bathroom mirror, and I saw the eyes that stared back at me.

Unfathomable, reddish, catlike eyes.

"Hello, Clow." the face that looked at me from the mirror said. "Long time no see."

…

And that's when I knew for sure that something goddamned huge had just started.

...

Author's notes:

Yey! I'm back!

It really is a pleasure, to be writing about these characters again. A short while after I finished writing "Do you remember love?", a series of crazy ideas started coming to my mind, about how that thing could have continued. Well, some of them seemed to root, and soon enough I realized I wouldn't be at peace until I wrote them down.

So, I started.

It took me a while to put them in order and make something coherent out of them; writing is a slow process for me, I read, re-read and correct everything a thousand times before even considering to upload, so even though I already have the entire story in my head, it may take me a while to write it all down. So once more, I'll appeal to your kindness and patience!

Well, I really hope you have enjoyed this first chapter. Let me tell you the rating will be set on M for the time being just to be on the safe side. I'm still not sure if this is going to get as sexually explicit as its prequel was. We'll see.

A little warning, though: this story will contain a few spoilers for xxxHolic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, concerning Clow Reed's life, not the stories themselves. It was kind of inevitable.

Speaking of which, the idea of "hitsuzen" is one very present in those works, and in all Clamp's work really (also in CCS). That's why I included in here. It's a key point in this story. If you never heard of it before, check it out online, it's a pretty interesting philosophical concept.

Finally, the song I intended Eriol and Tomoyo to dance was Ella Fitzgerald's rendition of "Blue Moon". It's a truly beautiful, romantic jazz ballad, and if you never heard it you must do it now!

All that being said, I hope I'll see you all in next chapter, and if you feel kind enough, please leave a review and let me know what you think!