Card Captor Sakura Fan Fiction ❯ The Taste of Your Life ❯ Painful Reflections ( Chapter 9 )

Author's note: Hey there! Long time no see huh? Well, let me tell you that things here got a little crazy. I found a job, running after a little monster aka babysitting, and I had a hard time finding time to write. Plus I'm currently writing two other stories beside this one so it's kinda complicated to do three things at the time but I love complicated things ^-^. I'm truly sorry to have made you guys wait this long and I hope you are not too mad at me. The good thing is that there is only two chapters left! Wohoo! Finally we will see the end of this, isn't that great? So, I must thank all of you who are still reading this even if I take my god damn time writing it. But you know what they say, the longer the better. So now read and enjoy and please don't forget to review!

Disclamiers: I unfortunately am not the owner of Card Captor Sakura… what a sad thing. But the plot and everything else in this story is mind so don't you ever try to copy or steal it cause if you do, I'm going to hunt you down and bleed you to death! Mwhaaaaaa!

Warnings: This story contains mature situation. It is not suitable for children, only mature readers are allowed and if kids are reading this than it's not my fault, I can't control you.

Now read and have fun!

The Taste of Your Life

By Evil Karyta

Chapter tenth: Painful Reflections

The snow, light particles of cold frizzed water, pure and white, glittering like fallen stars dispersed across the Earth, laying coolly on the ground. A reminder of passed times, cold pieces of passed seasons, melting with the sun. Falling day and night over the sleeping vegetation, forcing the humans to hind beneath layers of warm clothes. Li's eyes never seemed to get tired of the beauty of the winter dance. It reminded him of many things, things he had seen only with his supernatural eyes but that he loved anyway. The many cities he had visit, the landscape he saw by the moon light while roaming pointlessly around the Earth or the beauty of the eternal snow hanging on the highest pikes of the world.

He was sited across the window, burning eyes melting the frozen flacks falling from the heavens. He loved snowfalls, it seemed to be the only thing in his long lasting life that made him forget his statue, and the creature he was. Well, almost the only thing. He turned his gaze to the form sleeping in his bed. She had slept through the entire day and when he woken and left to feed, she was still there, oblivious of her surrounding, lost in the peaceful world of the dream. But she had slept long enough, now it was time to tell her, even though he was not sure how to tell her.

But as hard as he was thinking of awaking her, he stayed by the window, contemplating the miracle of her innocence and the beauty of her purity. The heavenly representation of all that was good and kind. How was it possible for her to love someone like him, something so inhuman and hateful as what he had became over the centuries. However, he forced those reflections aside, even though they would come back forcefully as soon as he would close his eyes or take them away from the soft forms of his lover. He let his eyes, pools of incandescent mix of cinnamon, yellow and blue, hover affectionately over the delicate features warped in his bed. The way her slender arms would move like those of a dancing ballerina, the hollow of her honeyed coloured hairs surrounding her lovely face.

He could feel it, by the way she moved, by the manner her thoughts would get more organised and precise, leaving the swirls of dreams to the concrete reality of the real world. He observed her little awaking ritual, as all human had, even the undead had one, maybe it was a way to reach their lost humanity, or just some kind of odd remembrance too strongly set into their instincts to be pushed away. The flicking of her hands, fisting them and then relaxing their composure to get back into a tight ball just as soon. Her eyes opening to the dim light and then closing again judging that maybe it was too soon to see the world. The half yawns her rosy mouth would form and the purring of her breath as she started to steer away from sleep, stretching her long legs and pushing away the covers unconsciously.

Her eyes finally open and casted a ray of soft life into his gloomy room. They slowly looked around trying to register exactly where she was and how she came there until they sited on him. The light that rose to those stunning green orbs glued him to place, rendering him speechless and overcome with a strong sentiment of undying love. It was so outcast and yet so familiar that he could not suppress the gentile smile that slipped to his lips at the mere contemplation of her delicacy and beauty.

"I don't remember coming here…" she murmured after a silent moment.

"I brought you here yesterday… I could not bear the thought of waking without you near me," he replied his voice barely above a whisper.

He walked toward her, his supernatural eyes shining in mixed emotions and his feature dancing upon some inner thoughts, somehow struggling with something inside him. She thought it might be his conscience, or maybe some confessions he had to make. Whatever it was, it made him feel uneasy, a feeling she had never thought she would witness on his perfect face. He sat on the bed, next to her and he affectionately passed a hand through her silky hairs, pushing a rebel lock away from her soft face. His smile never left though the expression imbedded into his swirling eyes seemed to get deeper and stranger.

"Sakura… I have something very important to tell you. I don't expect you to understand, you might think I'm crazy, some psychotic fool believing in some foolish legend to the point of thinking them true and taking them upon me. But… I would never live string with myself if I never tell you and just leave like that without any explanations or anything…" he started, suddenly looking away from her eyes.

She looked perplex, not quite registering what was in his mind. Fear gripped her guts, and she felt a wave of panic razing in her, like a bitter, disgusting flavour lingering in the edge of her mouth. Was he thinking of leaving her like that, after taking so much from her, after having shared such precious moments and developed some kind of love? The simple thought of it made her sick and almost drove her to the point of anger. He had no right to come into her life like this and take her the way he did, with so much passion and maybe love, and leave her like nothing happen!

He seemed to see what was going into her heart and mind and he shook his head as if trying to reassured her. He had no true intentions of going away unless it was her desire for him to do so. Which she would not doubt with what he was about to say. Either she would believe him or not, judging by her simple and pure heart, he could not see her as he was. And he was considering offering her his life and everything that went along with it. If she refused or did not understand, he would have to go. A relationship with the like of him was not something durable unless she was one too. He sighed deeply, maybe he should have waited a bit more before telling her the truth. The feelings he had developed toward her had taken such an immense space within his soul, he wondered if he would have the courage to risk a life without her if she was to refuse or disdain him after his talk.

"Sakura… I'm not what I seem to be. It's… it's difficult to explain, and even harder to understand. Have you ever heard of the undead?"

"What are you talking about?" she seemed beyond confused. "I did but, they are merely a creation of the fantasy. Brought up to scare children away from the streets when the night come or amuse our imagination and play with our fears of death…"

"That's not what I mean. What if those stories where not completely false? What if some of them, maybe more, where true or partly true?"

"Syaoran… what are you trying to say?"

"…… Over 400 years ago, in China, there was a boy, almost a man to the eyes of the tradition. He was 22, handsome and wealthy, heir of a highly respected family of the Chines aristocracy. He was to be wed to a girl he did not really loved, mostly by obligation to a promise his family had made to the girl's family. A week before the wedding, the boy ran away from his home, scared of the responsibilities he would soon have to take over and furious with the traditions, determined to never come back. One night, as he was walking mindlessly around the streets of Hong Kong, he fell over a strange girl. She was deadly beautiful, pale skin, white hair and burning blue eyes, almost red and as vivid as the fire of a hearth in the coldest of winter. "

"She was dressed like European aristocracy, an elegant dress of baby blue velvet and silk, maybe the daughter of a great lord coming to China for some unknown business. The thing is, the boy could not get his eyes away from this girl. She was like winter, cold and beautiful, every movement she made was precise and calculated. She came to him and talked to him in a perfect Cantonese which surprised the boy more than anything judging the fact that most of all Europeans did not take the learning of foreign languages useful in their disdain of other culture at that moment of history."

"As beautiful and exotic to his eyes as she was, the girl was somehow strange. He only saw her at sunset and she would disappear before sunrise. But the boy could not stay away from her, her charms and her luxury, because she brought him to the enjoyment of flesh, drawn him to her each night until one night, she bit him. He was scared at first and he could hear her thoughts inside his own head. She was telling him what she was and what he would soon become, a child of the night, a demon taking delight in sins and deaths… a vampire…"

Syaoran stopped and looked at his beloved. There was a certain fear in her eyes, as if she was listening to one of those mockeries of horror stories that friends would enjoy to share before bed in those sleepover parties. He could see her wondering about his story, trying to find exactly what he wanted to say with this bedtime tale, even if it obviously was not for children ears. Her long, delicate fingers clanged to the blood red silken sheets, her eyes looking at him in some lost wondering, as if trying to read through him and his story.

"Syaoran, why are you telling me this. You know I'm not too found of horror stories, even if they are from you…" uttered Sakura.

"Beloved… What I'm trying to tell you…" his voice drip a tone or two and he looked away. "The boy in that story… it was me…"

She stared at him, her eyes devoid of any sort of emotion, just two green orbs looking at him blindly, unfeeling, shut and mute. When he looked back at her, he could not tell if she believed him or afraid, she was just there and not at the same time. Trying in the confines of her soul to get all information he just give her to make sense and maybe trying to find a way to make it a lie. Silence overwhelmed the room, drawing cold and awkwardness to her presence and making feel uneasy, almost guilty of breathing. Slowly, life return to her eyes, a somewhat glitter of disbelieve and a bemused tone to her evergreens. She stared at him several minutes more, trying to understand truly the truth lingering to his words. But she could not accept it right away, she had to give him doubts, if only for the sake of her sanity, or just for the sake of life itself.

"Syaoran, this has to be a joke. Tell me you are kidding me…" she whispered, her voice weak and shaking.

He only stared at her with sadness in his eyes. Those pools of inner light, the red swirling inside them that she always thought was a trick of light were deadly serious. It slowly sank into her that this unbelievable story was so sickly true. Her face changed from scepticism to sadden realisation. It hurt him to see her reaction, some sort of cruel torture to see the one you loved be torn between the forces of evil and holly. It was like a stab to the chest, a blow to his dark soul, a slap to his awoken emotions. But he knew he could no longer live in a lie, that it was unfair to her, to him and to his love. If he had to pay a prise, to lose her for his sincerity, then he would, a smile on his face and accepts his fate and let her go. Even if it was bound to kill him, even if he was bound to turn insane without her, he would let her go with only the reminiscence that he did not had the chance to be alive and young at this time to be happy with her.

"No I'm not… even if my soul and mind wish I would… I'm fucking not!" he breathed out almost angrily and shutting his eyes tightly.

Sakura remained silent. She moved her hands to his face, touching the deathly cold feeling of his white skin, a strange heat escaped his body from the cooling blood rushing through his vines. A blood running through him from a heart that was not supposed to beat anymore, a blood he had stole from a living. She caressed his lips with her thumbs, parting them to see clearly his white teeth. There they were, those deadly sharps, inhumanly long and pointy canines resembling more to fangs than anything else was. They were not imitations or anything, no Halloween accessories, just real, genuine fangs. She touched the smoothness of those abnormally sharp teeth with the tip of a finger, like a child understanding and seeing through their fingers. He opened his eyes ever so slowly to see her face. Her expression was soft but strangely unreadable. Something he had never seen in her before, as if she had detached herself, disconnected her actions from the world. It disturbed him in some way and somehow, he could not help but try and explain something to her, even if he didn't know what it was, as if trying to find an excuse for all of his mindless kills.

"I hate her for what she did to me. Not even a year after my transformation, I ran away from her. I hind from her almost all of my life, cursing her existence and my own until I lost parts of my sanity. Every one of us always ends ups loosing their humanity and become some kind of monsters, lusting for blood and flesh. I, myself, separated my ways from humans, thinking of them as only preys as if trying to find some kind of excuse for their death, telling me that I was doing this for my own selfish survival. Believing my own made up lie that I was better then them. But still, the guilt would rise again and torture me endlessly until I shove it away again, killing madly in the most ruthless way. My whole life is stained with blood and death. Everywhere I went I left a trace of grieving and murder. Every mortal that stood in my way, I would kill, every undead that would rise to stop me, I would destroy. I've killed mercilessly, countless of times, plunging myself deeper into sin until I finally gave up my conscious and lived a meaningless, empty life… seeking some kind of revenge over someone I don't even know is still alive…" he stopped, no longer able to talk.

Tears show in his eyes, his hands were shaking and his mouth had become a thin light of flesh over his face. He dared not to look at her, ashamed of himself, feeling he had done more bad than goods by speaking his past like that. He felt lost, as lost as a young child looking for his mother. Clear tears spread down his cheeks, sliding to his lips and leaving a salty flavour to his tongue. Something soft touched his stained cheek, like a feather brushing away his sadness. The soft lips of his lover, kissing away is sorrow with soft stroke of her hand over his face, wrapping away the water of grief. His breath caught in, his expression changing from lost to love. Her gentle fingers were caressing his face, shoving slowly into his hairs, soothing his fears and guilt away, making him feel human and alive again. He voice came to his ears like the forgiving of God or the damnation of the Devil.

"What are you going to do now…"

He let her kiss him soothingly, letting her words get into him, full of meaning and wisdom in a way. His tears would not stop but it was no more from guilt that he was sobbing but something deeper that he could not name. He managed to get his lips to hers, locking their faces in that almost chaste proof of love. The sweet sound of their flesh moving in harmony, the wonderful taste of her breath, the feeling of her flesh against his. And the tears could not stop, he needed her, he didn't want to lose her. If she went away, he would lose everything, his sanity, his life and his soul. And his kiss grew in passion and need, giving her all he had left, pouring his core, his dark essence into her. His hand came to her face, stroking the soft flesh with his palm, his other reaching to her waist, pulling her close, never wanting to let her go.

All his love went through it, he could not hold it anymore, he needed to show her in this desperate kiss. And it was not enough, but he could not bring himself to make love to her, not now. It seemed wrong and out of place. But there has to be another way but he lacked of knowledge in it and all he could do was devouring her lips as if it was the last time he would fell her mouth pressed against his. And she let him, feeling it was the only way to free him from the darkness he was trapped in, giving him the power to see things in light for the first time in centuries. With a last taste of her, he ended the kiss, leaning his forehead to hers, his eyes close and tears slipping down them, silent rivers of emotions he could no longer put a name on.

"I love you Sakura… with my all even if it's not much and I can't bear to let you go. I will die if you leave, will lose my mind if you get away from my life but I can't expect you to stay with a monster…" his voice was hoarse and almost desperate.

"I'm not going anywhere…" she whispered.

"But you will… maybe not now, but someday, life will take you away from me… unless I…" he could not bring himself to say it.

"Unless you what Syaoran?"

"Unless I… make you like me…" he said slowly.

His eyes were still close; he would not open them. He did not want to see her reaction, just hear it. He face, he wanted to remember it the way it was before he uttered this solution, if it was one. He heard her breathing in slowly, heard her shift, and heard her think but not wanting to know what it was she was pondering. He felt her palm over his face, her hand moving against his arm, felt her struggle for an answer he feared.

"This decision is yours to make. I will always love you, as a human or one of your kinds. But your are the only one between the two of us who knows what it's like to be as you. The pain, the pleasure, the goods and the bad…" she said.

"If it is, then I definitely don't wish you to be what I am."

"I think it would be wise for you to think it over, Syaoran. Come back to me when your chose will be made…"

Sakura let go of him and got out of bed. He naked flesh glowed in the dancing light of the candles as she moved around the room looking for something. She came to a closet and opened it. She took out a pair of black trouser and a white shirt, which she put on. She turned to him and gave him a soft smile, looking adorable with his oversized clothes on her slender body, hair messy and shining in the dim light. She reach for his coat and draped it over her shoulders the sleeves way too long for her arms, and the size too big for her small frame. She almost looked like a child trying out her father's clothing, disguising herself as a man just for the fun of it, but it was not the case. She walked to him and gave him kissed his mouth, stroking his cheek amorously with her thumb.

"You know where to find me… don't make me wait too long. I love you…" she whispered.

Without waiting for his reply, she turned and left to get back to her apartment. Syaoran staid there, looking blindly at the door which had just closed after she had passed it. He sat on the bed, eyes looking at nothing in particular, mind mute and as still as a statue. She was not really gone, just waiting for his decision. She just had given him back the control of his life. Something he thought only lust and crave had over him. Now he had to decide if he would be with her forever, or just the time of her mortal life. The second was something hard, almost impossible. She would somehow become insane with a life in darkness with him. Not able to see her family again in fear of their reaction, and the first was just as difficult. He did not want to impose an endless wandering in darkness to her. His sight drifted to the floor, lost and unable to make a chose. What was he supposed to do? The Devil sure had a sick way to play with his life… or maybe it was God's punishment. Whatever it was, it sure was hard and almost painful.

"What are you expecting me to do…" he murmured, closing his eyes and letting go a few more tears to add to the many shared this night.

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to be continued………

a/n: So this is it… hope you like it. Don't know when the next chapter will be out. I'm writing in cicles. One day it's on the other it's another and the third if for the last… do you understand what I just wrote there? Maybe it's because I'm too tired to make sense. Anyway, please people, don't forget to review. These are for me what blood is for vampires, my reason of existence and my meal! See yah! ^-^