[01] Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle {Syaoran} (PG)
Title: A Final Lesson
Rating: PG
Series: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle
Character/Pairing: Syaoran, Fujitaka
Genre: Drama
Prompt: "C!Syaoran finding out Fujitaka's dead. We already know about the first time he smiled, show the first time he cries." (clampanonmeme)
Warnings: Angst?



For the first day, only Sakura cried. She had rushed down to his house the instant she heard and spent most of the day holding his hand and doing her utmost to comfort him. Syaoran just sat there, distant and distracted. An emptiness and a great weight had simultaneously settled in his heart. He only vaguely felt it at the moment because hope had not quite given out yet. Despite being there when the ruins collapsed, watching the men dig madly and try to shift the rubble, digging madly himself until his hands were bloody, Syaoran still half-expected his father to come through the front door any minute, smiling his ever-gentle smile. He couldn’t yet accept that his father was forever lost to the desert sands.

Toya came to get his sister just before sunset and to his indignation, Sakura repeated her insistence that Syaoran stay at the castle for a while. Just this once, Toya would not have objected, seeing as the kid was so miserable. But Syaoran refused and Toya persuaded his sister to drop it for now. They departed, but not before Sakura promised to come back first thing tomorrow.

Syaoran was left alone with his restlessness. He tried re-reading his father’s notes on the ruins, but didn’t really see them. Measurements, conjectures, lists all slipped out of his mind just as soon as they entered. The same thing happened when he tried to read a book and when he did some unnecessary cleaning and when he tried to make himself a dinner he knew he wouldn’t eat. The world itself felt unstable. With each hour that passed, that hope weakened and the reality that his father was dead crept closer to his consciousness. Syaoran barely managed to sleep.

A loud crash from the kitchen woke Syaoran the next morning. He started out of bed and, after a second’s delay, dashed to the kitchen nook. Yesterday had all been a bad dream, hadn’t it? He had expected to come upon his father grinning sheepishly over a rare bout of clumsiness. But when he entered the kitchen, he saw Sakura fretting over a vase she’d broken setting her basket down. She looked up, simultaneously apologetic and concerned.

“I’m so sorry, Syaoran, I didn’t mean to… Syaoran?”

Syaoran stood stiffly at the kitchen’s entrance, completely dazed. For ten seconds, he’d really believed his father was still alive. But now the memories and feelings so distant yesterday rushed over him again today, more vivid and crushing than before. Syaoran would never see that gentle smile he had when Syaoran did something particularly well nor watch his eyes sparkle with pleasure when they were on a dig. The person who gave him worth and a name, who guided him until he could interact as well as everyone else, who taught him almost everything he knew would never come back. Fujitaka had given him his first taste of sorrow.

Without warning, tears slid down his face. The first he can remember ever crying.

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Concrit = A++ Being an anonjerk = lifefail.