Title: Graceful Leave
Fandom: XXXHOLiC
Characters: Clow and Yuuko
Phrase: #33 – “The meaning of life is that it stops” – Franz Kafka
Warnings/Ratings: PG
Synopsis: Clow has his own plans, but Yuuko doesn’t always agree with them.

Graceful Leave

Clow woke up with his face buried in an ocean of silk. He could feel a soft hand stroking his hair. He blinked a couple of times, confused; it took him a while to recognize the familiar presence.

“Yuuko?” he asked. His voice sounded hoarser than he had expected.

“Finally. You were starting to worry me,” she said. “Quite a bad one this time, wasn’t it?”

“I can’t remember,” he replied. But he knew the trance must have really been bad, if she wasn’t even pretending to be mean to him.

The dazed feeling was slowly wearing off; the notion of lying with his head on her lap sank in at last. However, things around him still looked blurry. He realized she had taken off his glasses.

“What’s the point of such a thing, if you can’t even remember it later?” Yuuko huffed in frustration. He idly wondered if she meant you should not go through this in vain.

“It will come back to me,” he said. “Just give me some time.”

If he squinted a little, he could just make out her kimono’s butterfly pattern. That should remind him of something, he thought. But he was sure that the vision hadn’t been about Yuuko…

Ah, yes. Butterflies. Such an appropriate symbol.

“It was about my next life,” he whispered.

Her hand stopped moving.

“So you haven’t changed your mind, then,” she said. Her voice was colder than he would have liked.

“Isn’t that what makes us human?” Clow said. “The meaning of life is that it stops.”

“And you are powerful enough to choose when,” she pointed out.

“I’m not going to rush things,” he promised. “As long as my power supports me on its own, I will stay. But when my time comes, I will be ready.”

For what seemed to him a long time, there was silence. He knew she didn’t like to talk about that. Yet he’d had no other choice than telling her, because it was important to their plans- and because he couldn’t tell anybody else.

“I know what you wish for,” Yuuko whispered at last.

“And you know the price,” he replied. “Those years I could steal from Time…”

“I do not take lives,” she said.

“You cannot grant me my wish, Yuuko, but she can.”

“Indirectly,” she muttered, annoyed. Now she was playing with his hair, twirling a few strands around her finger. Clow smiled softly.

“She can,” he repeated.

“You could have those years,” she insisted.

“But I’ve had time already,” he said, “too much time. Wouldn’t you want to me to have my wish instead?”

He heard a small chuckle as her fingers ran through his hair once again.

“We are both very selfish,” she said.

There was nothing he could reply to that.