The last installment is finally here. Thanks for the company and the support, everyone.

For the next five days, Yukito was a shadow of his former self. He hardly spoke, he didn't eat, and his face became a pale, blank mask. If anyone asked, he insisted that he was fine, and each enquiry seemed to drive him deeper and deeper into himself.

There was an unspoken understanding between all of the Kinomotos and Yukito, after the incident, that their home was now his. Touya didn't know if Fujitaka was supporting this change because his newfound power gave him insight into Yukito's true family situation (or lack thereof), or if it was just Fujitaka's nurturing nature rebelling against sending Yukito back to what the man assumed were neglectful grandparents. Fujitaka had always treated Yukito like a second son, so not much in the family dynamic changed. It was a tendency that Touya knew the other boy had appreciated. – he only hoped that now, knowing Fujitaka's true identity, Yukito still gleaned the same comfort from his father's paternal demeanor.

Fujitaka's first order of business as Yukito's surrogate father was to try to get the boy to take the next few days off of school, a sentiment that Sakura earnestly echoed. Yukito declined, and Touya didn't even try to change his mind. He knew that mulish set to the shoulders, that dangerous glint in the otherwise soft amber eyes, and that obstinate jut of the lower lip too well to delude himself into thinking he'd have any success. Besides, Yukito, in denying Sakura's suggestion, had gone against his Master's express wishes – that sort of willpower wouldn't be easily shaken.

In school, Yukito tried his best to act normally. It was a commendable effort, but it was very obvious to his teachers and classmates that there was something seriously wrong. Two competing rumors surfaced that first Monday back at school. During English, Yukito's emotionless mask slipped, and he had to excuse himself abruptly, claiming that he had a head-ache. After five minutes, Touya went after him, not bothering to give the teacher an excuse. When he returned alone twenty minutes later, he was met by poorly-controlled whispers and curious glances. During lunch, a girl that he had gone to Junior High and High School with informed him of the first rumor that was circulating:

"They're saying that he confessed his love to you, and you rejected him," she bit her lip nervously as she spoke, knowing Touya's infamous temper when it came to rumors. "I don't think anyone really believes it – I mean, they all saw the look on your face when you went after him. And I told them that they were crazy if they thought that you'd do something like that, to hurt your boyfriend so badly."

It had been a week of major shocks for Touya. The realization that the whole school considered him and Yukito to be a formal couple hardly registered on the chart of surprises.

The other rumor was told to him by – of all people – their class's English teacher. Kazuya-Sensei held Touya back after the bell, to ask him if Yukito was all right. Touya shrugged awkwardly, unwilling to answer for the other boy, and the teacher nodded in sympathy.

"I read in the newspaper that his grandparents passed away over the weekend. I didn't want to make Yukito feel uncomfortable by saying anything at the beginning of class, because I always got the feeling that he and his grandparents weren't close, but will you tell him from me that he should go ahead and take all the time off that he needs? I'll work with him personally to make sure he gets caught up before his entrance exams, if I have to."

At that, Touya's mouth dropped open. He wasn't sure whether it was Clow's magic or Sakura's that was responsible for the fake obituary, but he certainly wasn't going to argue with such a convenient excuse for Yukito's emotional turmoil.

"I don't think he wants to miss any school," Touya said lamely, once he had collected himself.

"I expected as much," Kazuya-Sensei murmured. "The truly good students, like you two, never realize that it's okay to take a breather once in a while. Take care of him, Touya."

Touya nodded, fervently hoping that he would be able to.

After that first day, Yukito's blank mask didn't slip, and Touya hoped that that meant that his pain was getting easier to bear. But as the days began counting up to almost a week, Touya started to realize that it was exactly the opposite: Yukito might be getting acclimated to the pain, but it certainly wasn't easing – the better his mask, the deeper he pushed the hurt, the more damage it was doing to his heart.

By the third day, Touya was getting scared. His four attempts to broach the situation with Yukito had been brushed aside with increasing degrees of annoyance, and each one had been followed by the boy isolating himself a little more. Yukito's behavior reminded him of nothing as much as the period of time when Yukito had been fading away, keeping his true thoughts and desires hidden behind a counterfeit smile in order to prevent himself from being a burden. Touya still had nightmares about that time – and while Touya knew that this problem wouldn't make Yukito disappear, he was worried that the consequences if he didn't step in might be even higher.

The breaking point came that Thursday, when Touya witnessed Yukito respond to praise from their English teacher and censure from their Chemistry teacher without changing his facial expression or vocal inflection at all, as if both occurrences were the same in Yukito's mind: an irritating, but unpreventable contact with the world outside himself.

As soon as the last bell rang that day, Touya was on his feet. He waited for Yukito to pack his book-bag, then grabbed his hand and began dragging him out of the room.

"W-wait, Touya, I have some things I need to finish here," Yukito protested, cheeks stained pink that Touya was holding his hand in school.

Touya didn't stop. The entire school already thought that they were seriously dating, and he was sick of watching his love descend into despair.

"I know, and I have soccer practice. I don't care. We're going home. I need to talk to you."

Usually it was Yukito who was the stubborn one, but there must have been something in Touya's face or voice that warned the smaller boy not to argue. He allowed himself to be escorted all the way home, dragged up the stairs, and shoved unceremoniously into a sitting position on Touya's bed.

"Look," Touya said, pacing the length of his bedroom agitatedly, running a hand through his hair in his distraction. "I know that you've had a tough time this week. I can't even imagine what you've been going through, let alone pretend to understand. But it might be a little easier if you would talk to someone about it. I get it, you don't want to talk to me. But can you talk to Sakura? Or a school councilor? You need to get out of this habit of assuming that you're causing trouble for people when you think about yourself around them. You might think it's selfishness, but it's not. What's selfish is when you try to keep the people who love you from helping you, and force them to watch you suffer and fade away without the opportunity of doing anything!"

It was probably the longest speech that Touya had ever made, and he said the last two sentences to the closed door to avoid having to see Yukito's expression as he talked. When he finally turned back to his love, he had to stifle a gasp of surprise.

Yukito was sitting upright and rigid, right hand pressed over his heart as if to hold it in place. His face was white, his lips were pursed together into a painful line, and tears were streaming down his cheeks.

Touya crossed the room in two quick strides, and then paused, hovering over Yukito as if not sure what to do.

Yukito took a deep, shuddering gasp of air… and started talking.

Touya listened.

...

The Card Clan (as Kero had affectionately taken to calling the occupants of the Kinomoto residence) enjoyed a quiet few weeks. Then, to absolutely no one's surprise, strange and obviously supernatural incidences once again began to crop up, and Sakura was called upon to find their source and stop them.

"Power calls to power," Touya remarked dully the morning after Sakura had found the perpetrator and stripped him of his magic. Touya was making coffee – not something that he usually did – but he had been up all night leaping across Tokyo rooftops, trying to keep the girl and her guardians in view, and he was tired.

"Don't say it like that," Yukito groaned from his seat at the kitchen table. He was, if possible, more tired than Touya – he had spent the night flying over Tokyo rooftops shooting magic at the meddler. "You sound like you're prophesying when you use that tone of voice. And pour me a mug of that."

But in fact, prophesy or not, Touya's statement turned out to be true. The Kinomotos had another restful week before a second magician began making trouble, and two weeks after that it was a sorceress.

"We've been really lucky," Sakura said thoughtfully over dinner one evening, about three days after the sorceress had been defeated and sent back to Germany. "All of these little episodes have been at night, and there have been almost no people around."

"That's because it would cause trouble for the other guys, too, if they were to show their powers in a crowded place. Magic isn't supposed to exist anymore – they won't want the attention any more than you do," Kero said wisely, trying to use the stubby little arms that his temporary form was equipped with to work a set of chopsticks.

"But one of these days we're going to come across a magic practitioner who won't be so careful," Yukito said grimly, taking pity on the fuzz-ball and feeding him off of his own plate. "Sooner or later they're going to figure out that Sakura's at her most vulnerable when there are a lot of people around, because that's when she can't risk accidentally hurting someone with her magic, or creating a mess that thousands of people will see."

"What are you guys going to do if Sakura is threatened during the day?" Touya asked, shooting Yukito an annoyed glance at the attention he was giving the sun guardian. "Do you have some sort of plan?"

The three magic-users exchanged a speaking look.

And that was how the four of them ended up meeting in the "War Room" later that same night.

"Kero has started watching war documentaries," Sakura whispered to her brother by way of explanation. They were all sitting on Sakura's bed, facing a white board that Kero had scrawled Battle Strategy across the top.

Unsurprisingly, the meeting involved a lot of bickering, three incidences of spontaneous combustion, and Touya knocking Kero across the room after the orange ball of stuffing suggested that Yuki and Touya go across the hall to play with Touya's pistol. At one point, Fujitaka actually had to come in and help settle things down.

"Kids," he said sternly, dousing Sakura's smoldering bedspread with a look, "I know you all are having fun, but it's a school night. And I don't want the neighbors to call the fire department again because they smell something burning."

"Sorry, Dad," all four of them chorused, which startled a smile out of Fujitaka. After Eriol had split his magic between the two of them, Fujitaka had learned that he was responsible for the "birth" of Yue and Kero, but each reminder caught him by surprise.

In the end, the only thing that got decided was that, in the unfortunate event that Sakura was threatened during the day, they would try to finish it as soon as possible and then use the cards to right whatever messes were left over.

"Besides," Yukito tried to reassure Touya before he retired to his own room for the night, "Sakura can erase people's memories, if anyone sees something they shouldn't. Me and Kero stay close enough to her that we'll be able to reach her before anything disastrous happens. Don't worry about it." But Touya still looked troubled.

And it just so happened that the Card Clan had an opportunity to employ their strategy later that week.

It was a Tuesday, the day of a big Chemistry exam – their last one of the year. The test had been first thing in the morning, and with the weather turning fine and graduation peeking over the horizon, the High School Seniors had very little motivation to do anything at all after first period. During Calculus that afternoon, most of the class was staring listlessly out of the windows, daydreaming about the end of the year and pretending to take notes. Touya was staring totally unabashedly at the love of his life, who sat just next to him, near the back of the room. He was admiring the way that Yukito's eyes turned even softer than usual when he was daydreaming – when Yukito suddenly tensed up. He whipped his head around, as if he had heard something alarming in the distance, stood up – and was engulfed in a waterfall of pearly, yellow light.

When the light receded, a very disgruntled Yue was standing near the center of the classroom, teeth bared in annoyance. Every eye in the room was trained directly on him, most of them widened in shock and fear. Three girls screamed, and at least one boy laughed in surprise.

"Damnit," Yue swore softly. "That was bad. I should have been able to at least get out of the classroom before transforming."

Without realizing it, Touya had risen to his feet.

"Yue, what is it?" he said sharply. "What's going on?" Indigo eyes narrowed as Yue began sensing for the stimulus that had triggered his transformation. They snapped wide again when he found it.

"A danger approaches my Master," he said grimly. "It is very powerful, and very fast, and is no longer quite human. Stay here," he snarled, training a dangerous glare on Touya. "I need you to stay out of the way." With that, he whirled around and made as if to burst through the glass of the classroom windows.

"Yue, wait!" Touya yelled after him. To his total surprise, Yue did.

Touya still wasn't quite comfortable around the moon guardian. He loved him, of course, but they had exchanged very few words since that night on Clow's lawn, and Touya wasn't sure how well Yue was adjusting to having his love appropriated by some upstart boy who was the son of one of Clow's reincarnations.

Yue slowly turned around to face him, and when he did the breath caught in Touya's throat. Shimmering deep in Yue's eyes was an emotion that Touya had never seen there before. It softened his features, and made the angel look both infinitely wise and a little sad.

Yue crossed the distance between them with one quick snap of his wings.

"I'm sorry, darling," he murmured softly, catching one of Touya's hands in his, and placing the other against the boy's cheek. When Yue spoke like that, low and soft, his voice actually sounded like music. Each word sounded to Touya like the whisper of a thousand wind chimes, or the rustling call of a million birds. "I know you hate to feel useless," a frown was marring the angel's perfect, moonlight pale face, and the only thing that Touya could think was that he wanted to somehow erase that frown, "but I think that this attacker might be too strong for me to be able to protect both you and Sakura at the same time. Please love?" Yue nuzzled the side of Touya's head with his cheek on the last word. "Please stay out of harm's way for me?"

Touya nodded dumbly, unable to quite comprehend what was going on.

"Thank you!" Yue chirped, his eyes almost disappearing in a true smile. Suddenly, impulsively, the angel leaned forward and pressed his mouth against Touya's.

Touya's heart sang out at the sudden, long-awaited contact, and somewhere deep inside Yue, the boy felt the answering call of a power that had once been his. His eyes widened as he felt that power resonate through his own body, connecting them, making them whole and one. With a lurch, he realized that he was seeing the world as he used to see it, through the eyes of his Second Sight. The auras of his classmates glowed around him in a dizzying array of colors and textures. The blood burned in his body, his mind whirled in a frantic ecstasy of sight and touch and psyche – and then Yue was gone, exploding through the window in a shower of splintered wood and shattered glass, and was flying away across the grounds to get to Sakura.

Touya sat back down in his chair with a fwump, feeling cold and lonely and unbelievably mundane. The world had gone back to normal, the only sight he had came from light passing through his pupils, and the world seemed to be painted in an infinite supply of grey.

"Kinomoto," Touya's Calculus teacher said in an unnaturally high voice, breaking Touya out of his reverie. "Would you mind telling us what in the world is going on?"

It took Touya a moment to collect himself. "No, Sensei, I can't," he said finally, voice heavy with the laugh he was trying to control. "But I can assure you that tomorrow morning you won't remember that any of this ever happened."

...

The Sunday of graduation day dawned sunny and hot. Commencement was on the lawn, early enough to beat the heat. All of the teachers agreed that they had never had a prettier commencement ceremony. For one thing, all of the trees were still blooming, even this late in June. The weather channel had run a special report on it the night before: the flowers in Tomoeda, nowhere else in Japan, and tripled the previous bloom record.

Touya suspected Sakura, as he did when anything fortunate and out-of-the-ordinary happened. But as he watched Yukito walk across the raised platform and take his diploma from underneath a canopy of nadeshiko and sakura blossoms, he had to admit that it was magic well spent.

After the ceremony there was a reception, also on the lawn. At first, all the graduates ran to find their parents, and the families mingled in large, unwieldy clumps. Touya and Yukito had finished third and fifth in their class, respectively, so by the end of the first forty-five minutes they both had their smiles frozen in place, so many times had they bowed and thanked the parents of one or another of their classmates congratulating them on their academic performance. Fujitaka was bursting with pride, and kind-hearted Sakura was practically floating off the ground in joy and admiration for her big brother and his best friend.

After a while, however, the new graduates began to break off and form little groups of their own. It was, after all, the last time that many of them would get to see each other, and they were determined to make the most of the time that they had. Spirits were high – everywhere you looked there were smiles, laughing faces, friends embracing, and acquaintances exchanging e-mail addresses and telephone numbers. The jubilant atmosphere even seemed to have infected Touya – he, too, was talking and laughing animatedly – or at least as animatedly as Touya ever did anything.

Fujitaka left with Sakura after another half an hour.

"Oh, no, you boys stay here," Fujitaka told them, smiling. "Have a good time with your friends. We'll go out to eat tonight to celebrate."

Touya and Yukito stayed for another hour. Yukito was pleased to see that Touya was in a mellow, demonstrative mood. He kept squeezing Yukito's hand, and even suffered some of his female admirers to hug him before the two boys left together.

"So, what did you think?" Touya asked, as the two boys walked slowly home. A smile was still playing at Touya's features, softening his face, and it made Yukito feel sentimental just to look at it.

Yukito sighed in contentment. "I'd say that this day has been nearly perfect," he smiled.

Touya placed a firm hand on Yukito's shoulder, stopping him. Yukito blinked in surprise. They were standing just by the park bench under the big old maple and oak trees that the two boys used to visit nearly every day last fall. Yukito's eyes crinkled just a little as he remembered all the times that Touya, still getting used to life without his psychic powers, had fallen asleep on his shoulder as they watched the leaves gently fall off the branches in elegant swirls.

"What is it?" Yukito asked, turning to face his friend. Touya left his hand on Yukito's shoulder, and brought the other hand up to brush Yukito's bangs away from his face. Yukito was blushing now, but it was a gentle, happy blush that matched the atmosphere of the day.

"You said that this day has been nearly perfect," Touya murmured, his voice coming out as more of a rumble than a pitch. With each word, he lent a little closer to the shorter boy. Finally, gently, he placed his mouth over Yukito's.

Like he had when Yue had kissed him, Touya again felt an echo from the magic that had once been his. But this time the echo was soft, and sweet, and faint, and he tasted the difference rather than seeing and feeling it as he had with Yue. But the way that Yukito's body became light and relaxed under his mouth and hands, the way that the boy began gently responding and drawing Touya deeper and deeper in… was almost better.

"What about now?" Touya whispered, pulling his face far enough away that he could look Yukito in the eyes.

Yukito was smiling a totally new type of smile, one that Touya was proud to have created.

"Now it's perfect."

Author's Notes: I'm not totally happy with the first third of this story, but that part was extremely hard for me to write, so I'm not sure that I'll do much editing of it. I made a few little edits to chapter three, just to make it flow a little more naturally, in case anyone is keeping track.

My last little trick was to have Yue and Touya's first kiss come before Yuki and Touya's. I thought it was cute, and a little surprising, but I may have been taking some liberties with their characters. I also took some liberties with the time frame, I believe. I inserted a grace week in between the climax and the conversation where Yukito tells Touya that he's grateful to Clow for having created him. Oh, well, though – that's life.

Thank you so much for reading this, encouraging me, and giving me feedback. I'll be back soon with another story, but for now I'm moving onto a long-overdue Demon Diary fanfiction. Maybe I'll see some of you there…

If anyone knows how to format section breaks, drop me a line letting me know please! I could never figure out how to insert them.

Love,

Cloudy