Syaoran: >_<;
Item: Assume that they're in high
school, and don't expect canon OR in character. ^^;
-------------------
BETTER THAN THE HEDGEHOG
Being, A CCS Fic
By, Suppi No Miko
Filled with, OOC, Hentai Fangirl
Moments
and the Occasional Tied Up Wolf.
"Spinel...," said Eriol, slouching in his throne chair and tossing a tennis ball up at the ceiling. "What was the last really fun thing that I did?"
"Let's see," said Spinel, who had adopted an undignified but comfortable position on the back of the couch with his legs straight up in the air. "You talked everyone into playing 'Spin the Bottle' with an enchanted bottle, and made Syaoran and Tomoyo kiss Sakura, and then kissed Syaoran twice. You thought that was fairly amusing."
Eriol chuckled evilly.
"And then you set a dream on Tomoyo about sleeping with Sakura..."
"That," said Eriol, "counts as public service."
"Hm... And then you somehow managed to lock Touya in the same room alone with Nakuru for three hours before Sakura rescued him..."
More evil chuckles.
"Other than that, I don't know."
"What was the last thing I did to my cute relative?" Eriol eyed the ceiling thoughtfully and then sent the ball off on a course that hit every wall and narrowly missed braining Spinel, and ended back in his hand. The laws of physics squawked, and shut up at the look the tennis ball gave them.
"Hmm...I think the 'Spin the Bottle' thing. Or else your usual Hit On Sakura In Front Of Him While He Glares In Silence."
"It was fun when he took the bottle outside and cast a lightening spell on it," Eriol remarked. "Any thing more fun than that?"
Spinel shook his head, which is quite a feat when one is on one's back on a fluffy couch. "I think you 'accidentally' groped him once."
"My cute relative," said Eriol, smiling as if at some uplifted memory, "Is very gropable." He shook his head mournfully. "I'm afraid, dear Spinel, that I'm getting into a bit of a rut."
"That," said Spinel, "Can always be remedied."
Eriol smiled. "How true."
--------------
"So what are you going to do?" asked Spinel. They had adjourned to the kitchen, and Eriol was chopping up pickled plums for sushi.
"Hmm..." said Eriol. "I've already groped him, used him for a spell, hit on the girl he likes and made suggestive remarks. I want to do something really fun and surprising this time."
"You could just ignore him," Spinel pointed out. "THAT would surprise him."
"Yes, but it's not very fun, is it?" Eriol lifted the cover of the rice pot and squinted scientifically at it. "Almost done. I'd like to outdo myself this time."
Spinel paused. "You mean..."
Eriol smiled evilly. "I'm going to top the Hedgehog Incident."
There was a small, muffled thud as Spinel hit the ground. When he recovered, he said, "That's going to take some doing. How long did you plan the Hedgehog Incident? A month?"
"A month and a half, I think." Eriol opened a bag of seaweed and pulled out vinegar. "Do you think Nakuru's going to want eggs with hers?"
"He'll eat anything as long as it has sugar," said Spinel, a bit sourly. He still hadn't forgiven Nakuru for the Plum Incident. "But do you have any other ideas besides 'topping the Hedgehog Incident'?"
"Hmm..." said Eriol. "I think we still have most of the things I used then. Don't we?"
Spinel, official organizer and record keeper for Two Weird Magical Gaurdians and A Freak With Glasses, gazed off into the distance for a second. "We don't have the squid anymore, but you bought it fresh, too. Um... I know we have the rope. We have the feather boa, but not the South American one --"
"The snake'd probably scare Sakura-san, anyway," said Eriol, tossing rice and vinegar together.
"We still have the sponges and the handcuffs. We left the hedgehog in England, and I'd have to check the rest of it," said Spinel, bringing Eriol a small bottle of seasoning.
"Please do," said Eriol. He smiled, a happy, evil smile. "This is going to be FUN, Spinel."
-------------
To say that Syaoran wouldn't trust Eriol through a lace curtain was to do an injustice; he wouldn't trust Eriol if the latter was tied up and locked in a glass cage surrounded by a kekkai and gaurded by man-eating tigers, with the whole thing suspended over a lake of fire. For one thing, he still got the cold shivers whenever he accidentally thought of the day in gym class when they were climbing walls, and Eriol had helpfully "just happened" to put his hand -- it sicked him out just thinking about it. And the Spin the Bottle thing... Syaoran was torn between turning bright red at the thought of kissing Sakura and throwing up at the memory of Eriol kissing him. Syaoran was fairly innocent -- the result of being buried in magic lessons since the time he could focus his eyes -- but from what he'd heard, he was pretty sure that even English people didn't LICK people's cheeks when they were pretending to kiss them. The memory of that warm, cat-like tongue sliding over his cheek still gave him nightmares.
What he hated worst, though, was the fact that even when he knew that Eriol was up to something, he couldn't do anything about it. Eriol could run -- oh, hell, he did run -- circles around Syaoran in the sneaky department. It was like, Syaoran thought gloomily, a dog trying to figure out what the hell the cat was doing lying up there on the mantel, just before the cat used him as a springboard. Or worse. He always tried to figure out what Eriol was going to do next, and he always failed completely. It was a little embarassing.
Like now, for instance. Supposedly
they were at the library working on a group project with Tomoyo and Sakura
[which was always a danger in and of itself; it was hard to concentrate
with her sitting beside him, but he hated not being in her group], but
by this time Sakura was humming tunelessly to herself as she took notes,
Tomoyo was drawing something that looked suspiciously like someone with
strawberry-gold hair with longer bits in front, wearing something that
Syaoran, who had seen most of the costumes Tomoyo had dreamt up, was forced
to
conclude was "lace and ribbon and
flowers with a side order of lace and ribbon and flowers", and Eriol was
sitting beside Tomoyo, supposedly and virturously scribbling away in English.
Syaoran was supposed to be going through some more books, but he was occupying
his time between keeping an eye on Eriol, admiring the excellent side view
of Sakura and occaisionally making notes for all four of them in Japanese
and notes for himself in Chinese.
Something slid against his foot. Syaoran wondered, briefly, what it was, but it stopped. Syaoran returned to making notes. Something slid against his foot again, with a brief wiggle across the top of his shoe. Syaoran moved his foot closer to his chair, and continued making notes. A little while later, he absently moved his foot back to where it had been. Syaoran nearly leaped a foot in the air as the -- something -- slid across his foot again and somehow wiggled it's way into his pant leg, and rubbed. He jerked his foot back and glared suspiciously at Eriol, who looked up at him with an expression of questioning, limpid innocence.
Syaoran didn't buy that one for a minute.
Sakura looked up. "Is something wrong, Syaoran-kun?"
Syaoran gave Eriol an especially fierce look and bent to his work again. "No, nothing," he said.
Eriol's mouth curved in something that wasn't quite a smile.
----------------------------
Spinel surveyed the neat stacks of boxes in the basement. He had a list in one paw, and was looking from boxes to list and back again.
"Suuupppiiiii?" trilled Nakuru. "Wheerrreeee aarrrrrrreee youuuuu, Suuuuupppiiiiiiiiii?"
Spinel scowled. "And whom, may I ask, is 'Suppi'?" he shouted up the stairs.
"The cute little butterfly-winged kitten with the corksrcew tail, of course," said Nakuru, with his usual obnoxious cheer, taking the steps down two at a time.
"Crossdressing again, I see," said Spinel, eyeing Nakuru's white eyelet sundress.
"It'd be just as crossdressing if I wore male clothes," he pointed out. "Since I don't have a gender. Besides, all beings start out as female, don't they?"
Spinel had to give him the point, but he wasn't going to admit it. He flew up to one box and compared the list of contents to the list in his paw. "Hmm... gravy boat, check."
"What on earth are you doing down here, anyway?" asked Nakuru, perching herself lightly on the bench that ran around the wall of the basement.
"Eriol asked me to," said Spinel absently, checking the list again. "Red ribbon, check."
"Aren't those the boxes from...?"
"The Hedgehog Incident? Yes."
"What on earth does he want you to check stuff from the Hedgehog Incident?" Nakuru got up and peered over Spinel's shoulder at the list.
"Well, you know how he likes teasing his cute relative, right?"
Nakuru nodded.
"He decided to see if he could top the Hedgehog Incident."
Nakuru fell over.
----------------------------------
Sakura and Syaoran were finding more books to go through. Sakura was still humming beneath her breath, and Syaoran was still scowling. He didn't know what Eriol was up to, but just this one time, he was determined to not let him get away with it. He looked over to where Eriol and Tomoyo were still sitting. Eriol had leaned close to Tomoyo and was apparently telling or asking her something; she was nodding rapidly. She looked over and smiled sweetly at him, and Syaoran felt a cold chill run down his spine.
-----------------------------------
Nakuru clawed her way back up to her feet. "But -- but the Hedgehog Incident was BRILLIANT. It took him a month and a half to plan and carry out!"
Spinel nodded. "He's got about three weeks to pull this one off."
"Wow." said Nakuru. "And he thinks he can do it?"
"We've got most of the stuff already here, and he thinks he can get some help elsewhere if he pulls the right strings." Spinel eyed the stacks of boxes. "Assuming we can find the things in here."
Nakuru tapped a long finger against her chin. "I wonder..."
"Probably," said Spinel, who knew Nakuru's thought processes, "If you talked them into it."
Nakuru threw up her arms and cheered. "I'll help you go through this junk!"
"Put on something that ISN'T white, first," said Spinel, looking at her dress again. "Eriol'll never get dust stains out of that thing."
Nakuru scampered upstairs.
-----------------------------------
Syaoran had two horrible feelings.
One, that there was something going on that he didn't know about. He didn't know why he had that feeling. It was a combination of little things, like Sakura jumping guiltily when she saw him, and Kero smirking importantly. Tomoyo acted the same as usual, but Tomoyo was perfectly capable of acting normally while hiding a machine gun behind her back. He couldn't give it his full attention, though, because of the second thing.
The second, and more horrible feeling was that Eriol was stalking him. He did know why he had that feeling. Eriol was constantly around him, standing a little closer than strictly needed, staring at him with the thoughtful, hungry air of a cat surveying the dinner menu and finding excuses to make remarks that seemed perfectly innocent, but carried the aura of something else. And if he managed to flick non-existant fluff off of his shoulder or his hair one more time, Syaoran was going to deck him.
What the hell was going on?
----------------------------------
"Do you think we're going to make it?" asked Spinel. Eriol was draped over his throne chair again, throwing the tennis ball against the ceiling, and Spinel was on the back of the couch.
"We should," said Eriol. He laughed. "You should have seen the look on my cute relative's face today when I offered him the ball at the gym."
"Oh?" said Spinel, batting at a mosquito.
"I suppose the fact that I was standing two inches away from him had something to do with it," said Eriol, grinning. "But he looked like he couldn't decide whether he wanted to run away screaming or punch me out."
"That doesn't sound like very much fun," observed Spinel, giving up on the mosquito.
"What does that American friend of yours say? He looked like a deer caught in a headlight." Eriol chuckled evilly. "And then I managed to grope him again later on, and he looked torn between confusion and wanting to rip my head off."
"Are you enjoying yourself, Eriol?" asked Spinel, looking over at him.
"Very much," said Eriol, pulling out the Evil Mysterious Look. "And it's only going to get more amusing."
----------------------------------
"I wonder if Mother sent my package yet," said Syaoran, dumping another of pile of books down at the table in the library.
"Package?" asked Tomoyo, wide-eyed. She divided the books into four neat stacks and passed two of them to Eriol and Sakura.
"It's my birthday next week," he said, trying not to sound piteous. "She always sends me a package."
"R-Really?" said Sakura, a trifle too brightly. There was something wrong with the tone of her voice, but she had her head buried in the middle of one of the books already, so he couldn't see her expression.
"That's kind of her," murmured Eriol, somehow managing, despite sitting opposite Sakura and next to Tomoyo, to look meltingly into Syaoran's eyes, "To think of you when you're so far away." Syaoran stared into them, half-hypnotized, for a second before shaking his head violently and looking away.
There was a muffled thud under the table, and Eriol flinched. Sakura hmphed and went back to reading.
------------------------------------
Eriol rubbed his shin discreetly. Sakura-san had a mean kick when she was irritated.
Almost as mean as the way that Tomoyo-san had ground her heel in his foot.
------------------------------------
Despite Syaoran checking his box every few hours the next week, his package didn't come. He didn't want to ask his mother about it when she called on his birthday, and besides, his sisters were doing their usual clawing-the-phone-away-from-each-other so they could squeal in his ear. And then his cousin ripped the phone away from them so she could talk to him -- Meiling had been briefly and violently in love with him when they were kids, and still regarded him somewhat possessively, despite a boyfriend who was apparently a combination of every popular idol and God Almighty Come to Earth -- and so between one thing and another, even if he had wanted to ask, he hadn't had a chance.
Sakura didn't call or come over. Tomoyo didn't call or come over. God help him, by three o'clock he was realising that even Eriol hadn't called or come over, which said something about his mental state.
"Happy birthday to me," he growled to the empty apartment at large. The apartment didn't answer him. He sighed and grabbed his keys. If he was going to be alone and forgotten on his birthday, by God he was going to be Alone And Forgotten with a Gallon of Chocolate Chocolate Fudge Swirl and Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. Possibly with a side of chocolate chocolate chip cookies and chocolate milk.
Syaoran opened the door -- and found himself nose to nose with Eriol, who was arranged in a pose borrowed, had Syaoran but known, from one of the old movies that comprised Spinel's one, shameful weakness. If it was black and white, had dames in too much lipstick and the words "Here's loiking at you, shweethart" appeared in the script, Spinel had seen it. Even with his sad lack of familiarity with said films, Syaoran could have sworn he heard a saxophone wail out a riff.
"Hi," purred Eriol.
Syaoran backed instinctively away. "W-What the hell are you doing here?"
Eriol ran a lazy eye over Syaoran, in the best tradition of Spinel's film collection. He lingered thoughtfully over where Syaoran's shoulders filled out his t-shirt, and paid special attention to Syaoran's legs, which, Syaoran sincerely thanked God and his ancestors, were encased in neatly pressed khaki. He took another step back.
Eriol shook his head regretfully."Your hair's a bit mussed, but it can't be helped." He tilted his head and shot Syaoran a look beneath his lashes. "I kind of like it....tussled, though."
Syaoran backed up another step and looked wildly around for a weapon.
Eriol stalked into the room, with the long, lazy stride of the hunter -- Spinel would also never admit in a million years to reading the sort of novel lined up in neat rows by the checkstand at supermarkets, but there was a stack of them carefully hidden behind the magic books in the library. "Really, Syaoran," he said, "why so shy?" He looked over to where Syaoran's shoes were lined up by the door. "Better get your shoes on."
Syaoran's eyes narrowed. "I'm not going anywhere with you," he snapped.
"We could just stay here," suggested Eriol, eyes glinting. "I think that would be FUN, don't you? Your place looks so... comfortable..." He reached up and undid the top button of his shirt.
Syaoran fairly leaped for his shoes.
-----------------------------------
Spinel had another list in his paw. "Squid," he said.
"Ew," said Nakuru.
"Gravy boat."
"Check."
"Ribbon."
"Check."
"Feather boa."
"Check."
"South American boa."
"In the zoo."
"Chocolate sauce."
"Check."
"Rope."
"Check."
"Handcuffs."
"Check."
"Blindfold, safety pins, thumbtacks, camera."
"Check, check, check annnd check!"
-----------------------------------
Eriol was not, quite, standing too close to Syaoran. This was almost his favorite part of the entire enterprise; it took a keen mind and delicate timing to make sure that the vic -- er, the one you were with -- was only off gaurd and nervous, and not in a position to actually object or, in his cute relative's case, justified in one swift right to the jaw. Wolves were so regrettably touchy about these things. Eriol supposed he could hypnotise him or slip something to him, but he'd always thought that was a trifle unsporting, especially in situations like this. He'd enspelled Syaoran once when he was trying to get Sakura-san to change the Cards over, but that was different.
It wasn't FUN to make it so the prey couldn't run away, after all.
Eriol checked his watch. Three hours to play with his cute relative, and then he'd have to have him in a condition to face Sakura-san. A distant part of Eriol's mind suggested that he himself would have to be in a condition to face Tomoyo-san, but it shut up quickly. Eriol was -- fairly -- certain that Tomoyo-san wasn't interested in him, but you never knew. And she'd ground her heel in his foot five times in the past three weeks when he was getting too personal with his cute relative, although he wasn't sure whether that was because Tomoyo-san actually CARED if he was getting too personal with someone else, or just a general polite warning about Not Bothering The Person Her Precious Sakura Was Interested In. [Eriol had seen what happened when Tomoyo-san stopped giving polite warnings and went after someone. It was not a pretty sight.]
His cute relative was as stiff as a two-hours-dead mouse. Eriol allowed himself a small, sadistic smile and let his hand drift down so it was not quite at Syaoran's waist. His cute relative moved very slightly away.
"You know, Syaoran," said Eriol, straightfacedly, "Do you and Sakura-san ever go to swing clubs?"
Syaoran gave him a look of loathing combined with horror.
"I think you should if you don't," said Eriol, happily aware that Syaoran never danced in public and would probably have to be under the influence of the better part of a fifth of whiskey to dance in private [one part of his mind paused and went on a nice tangent on what Sakura-san would have to do to convince him without the whiskey -- on the other hand, Syaoran would do surprising things under her influence], "I'm sure you're a wonderful dancer, because you're so...graceful." Another sideways under-lashes look.
Syaoran skidded to a halt. "What the HELL do you think you're trying to pull?"
Eriol gazed at him with wide, innocent eyes. "'Pull'?'
His cute relative gave him a look that could have scorched an iceburg. "You know what I'm talking about," he said, very precisely. "Now, what the hell is going on?"
Eriol blinked at him. "Really, how untrusting of you," he said, looking sad.
This was not deemed worthy of comment, not that Eriol blamed him. "I'm going to get my ice cream, and then I am going back to my apartment," he announced, and glared at Eriol. "ALONE."
"How...unsocial," murmured Eriol. If his cute relative was really going to be stubborn, it would be necessary to take measures, but he'd wanted the fun of this part, even though Tomoyo-san and Spinel had pointed out, sensibly, that it would have been easiest to have Sakura-san do it. [Spinel's exact words had been "He'd leap off a cliff into a volcano if he thought it would make her laugh."] "Maybe I wanted to spend the day with you. It is your birthday, is it not?"
Syaoran winced visibly. "T-that doesn't mean I want to spend it with YOU," he said, with more spirit than Eriol had been expecting. "Maybe I was PLANNING to spend it alone --"
"--and forgotten--" added Eriol.
"With some ice cream!"
"I think it's more FUN to share ice cream," said Eriol. "Especially when it's a bit soupy." He paused for effect. "I know!" he said, brightly, "I'll buy you a fudgecicle."
Even his cute relative caught that one, and turned a vivid shade of scarlet. "I-I'm leaving!"
Eriol let him go about ten feet.
He looked around thoughtfully. Nobody was paying attention.
Eriol snapped his fingers.
He leaped to catch his cute relative as he slumped to the ground, tsking to concerned passersby about anemia and getting him home before he got sunstroke.
He was having a great time.
---------------------------------
Somewhere else in Tomeda-Chou at That Very Moment:
Sakura blinked. She then rubbed her eyes and looked again.
It hadn't gone away.
"Tomoyo-chan..." she said, carefully, "What is this?"
Tomoyo smiled at her with the bright light of madness shining in her eyes. "Your outfit for tonight, of course!"
Sakura picked up the thing lying on her bed as if she expected it to bite her. "Tomoyo-chan..." she tried again.
"Yes?"
"It's red."
"Yes, it is."
"Bright, lipstick red."
"Yes, it is."
"And it's satin."
"Yes, it is."
"And if it goes past my hips, I will eat it."
"No, you won't."
"And I am supposed to wear a red satin dress -- slit to my tonsils -- tonight."
"Yes, you are."
"Tomoyo-chan?"
"Yes, dear one?"
"You're insane."
Tomoyo smiled again, a bright, crazed smile that saw an evening of video-taping Li-kun with the worst nosebleed of his life before it. "Only over you, Sakura-chan. Only over you."
------------------------------------
Nakuru draped herself over one of the couches becomingly. She was practicing for when Touya-kun showed up, although she knew perfectly well that he would pretend not to notice. Yukito, of course, would, and probably Yue, as well. Nakuru hadn't had a good fight since they'd gotten sweet lil Sakura-chan to change over the cards.
-------------------------------------
Author's Twin: *reading* A
bit stretched for ideas, are we?
Author: You hush, chickie.
Hey, you want to go take that file away from Syaoran?
Eriol: Hurry up, I want to get him
tied to my bedposts. ;_;
Author: ... Oh, sweet Mother
of God.
Spinel: Weren't expecting to do
that, were you?
Author: Dammit, I have so far managed
to keep Syaoran's purity for him!
Eriol: Not for long. XD
Syaoran: *resumes filing frantically
at the bars of his cage*
Several Internet Correspondents
-- Actually, A Lot of Them -_-; : HURRY UP WITH HEDGEHOG, DAMMIT!
Author: ><; TO CONTINUE...
-------------------------------------
Unfortunately Yukito was too damn nice for his own good. A pity. They could have had a lot of fun together.
Spinel flew in, wearing a large bow that matched his eyes and a revolted expression.
"Oh, Suppi," cooed Nakuru, "How cute~!"
Spinel glared at her. "The only thing," he said, with concentrated venom, "That is good about this damn bow. Is that Cerberus is wearing a bright red one. On his tail."
"Oh, how cute," said Nakuru, enthusiastically.
"And then," said Spinel, bitterly, "And THEN. She wanted us to wear party hats. Little ones. With pompoms on top."
Nakuru nobly kept a straight face.
"And to top it all off," said Spinel, with loathing, "Cerberus had the GALL to suggest I might feel differently after I'd had a piece of cake."
It was too much. Nakuru fell off the chair, laughing. Spinel glared at her. Spinel the dignified, Spinel the scholar, serious Spinel had once danced and sung a rousing hornpipe in midair under the influence of one, single sugar cube. Eriol swore up and down that Spinel's Unfortunate Little Problem had been a complete accident, but the fact remained that Spinel got completely drunk off the fumes of sugar syrup boiling for custard in the kitchen. He didn't even dare eat a single piece of cantalope for fear of the sugar in it. If he got so much as a gram of sugar in his system, he bounced off the walls, laughing like a maniac. It was the curse of poor Spinel's life.
"If you are QUITE finished, Eriol should be coming back soon," said Spinel, with dignity.
Nakuru wiped tears from her eyes. "I wonder if he was sucessful?"
"I wonder how he's carrying him back," said Spinel, a trifle acidly. "That Li's no lightweight."
Nakuru blinked. "He hasn't a single ounce of fat on him," she objected.
"You ever hear that old saw about muscle weighing more than fat?" Spinel had once taken a message to Eriol at school and found him in the locker room happily stalking his cute relative, and he could attest to the fact that the Li was -- well, had Spinel been human, which, thank God, he was not, he himself would be tempted to tease him a little.
"Just like my To-ya-kun," said Nakuru, happily. "Do you think he'll notice my new outfit?"
Considering that said outfit was comprised largely of spandex, lace, garters and quite a bit of careful glue to hold things up, Spinel doubted Touya could avoid it.
---------------------------------
In point of fact, Eriol was carrying Syaoran with no trouble at all. Eriol's -- well, ok, Clow's -- father had always said that it was better to be built so that nobody realised that you COULD wipe the floor with them, a philosophy to which Eriol still subscribed. And Syaoran wasn't really all that heavy — the Li clan tended to be built for speed, efficiency and beating the daylights out of people before they realised what happened to them, not for mass. Eriol still treasured some of Clow's fond memories of "playing" with the Li Clan members of the past, [i.e., Clow bounced from building to building, cackling like a maniac and occaisonally sending a bolt in his pursuer's general direction Just To Make Things Interesting, as Yue and Cerberus begged for him to gain some sense and the unlucky Li followed gamely behind, cursing a blue streak and using a month's supply of ofuda in about five minutes] and had every intention of making many more beautiful memories of the same type. It was just his cute relative's misfortune to be the only readily available Li — after all, Eriol thought, looking down on Syaoran's peacefully sleeping but still wary face and basking in the warm glow of a virtuous deed, if there had been another Li around, Eriol would have been perfectly happy to tease them as well, and Lord only knew that he was practically doing him a FAVOR. They got soft when he/Clow wasn't around, and what if something Bad happened?
The Li males of Clow's generation would have never fallen in love with Sakura-san [not that was a bad thing, it had just been unexpected], nor let her collect all the Cards. The females of the Li clan were something else entirely. Clow never teased them, because they had a regrettable tendency to stare at him for a second, say, in enlightened tones, "Oh, you WANT me to get mad and try to kill you!", and then walk off. No fun at all. Anyway, anybody who thought that a male Li was scary when they got mad had never seen an irritated Li woman. And to make it worse, when a Li male finally got round to falling in love and marrying, he — well, Eriol was so proud to see Syaoran following in his ancestors' footsteps. There was nothing in the world so spoilt rotten as the wife of a Li, and nothing quite so loyal as a Li when he made his mind up.
Eriol had a nasty feeling in the back of his mind that perhaps he shouldn't have TOO much fun with his cute relative — because the Li clan also did this weird thing where they got upset for no apparent reason, decided that They Weren't Worthy and then slunk off to their own little dark corner of despair, and that would make Sakura-san unhappy. And if Sakura-san was unhappy, Tomoyo-san was unhappy, and Tomoyo-san would Do Some Math and realise whose fault it was, and then Eriol would be the focus of some very unamusing attention from Tomoyo-san. And Eriol had made up his mind a long time ago to avoid annoying Tomoyo-san at all cost.
So that left out the Funner Things to do to his Cute Relative, like reenacting Nakuru's latest yaoi doujinshi purchase. That would have amused, especially if Nakuru let him borrow the black satin sheets and the velvet handcuffs she had optimistically bought. She said she never knew if she'd get a chance to use them, but she'd gotten more than her money's worth in just talking about them in front of To-ya-kun. Eriol allowed himself a wistful vision of Syaoran handcuffed, lying on black satin sheets, with himself cackling and branishing a can of whipped topping in one hand and a bottle of chocolate syrup in the other as he loomed over him.
But, no. He must be noble.
Eriol grinned suddenly. But that still left him with a lot of FUN things to do.
-------------------------------------------
Sakura should have been used to Tomoyo-chan by this time. Really, every time she thought that Tomoyo-chan had surely, surely, surely reached the outer limits of her imagination -- not to mention the limits of what a human being could do with fabric and a sewing machine -- Tomoyo-chan pulled something worse on her.
Like this, for instance.
"Tomoyo-chan?"
Tomoyo smiled questioningly at her.
"What is this...thing?" Sakura lifted up something that seemed to be composed of chiffon, lace, and bones in more or less equal proportions.
"Well," said Tomoyo-chan, with an especially maniac smile, "Sometimes when you wear Special Clothes, you need Special Undergarments for them."
Sakura stared at the...thing...again. She was pretty sure it had more bones than the human body in it. She was also pretty sure that it would be the most uncomfortable thing on the face of the earth to wear. She looked at Tomoyo-chan again. "And I'm supposed to fasten it how?"
Tomoyo-chan gave her a wide-eyed look. "You take off the rest of what you're wearing --"
Sakura braced herself.
"--and then you put on the rest of the Special Undergarments, and then you put it on and I help you lace it up the back."
Sakura's eyes dragged themselves to the rest of the "Special Undergarments". Something white and lacy, which was probably technically panties -- although _only_ on a technicality, considering they could best be described as a triangle of satin and lace connected by two ribbons. A garter belt. Lace-topped stockings. A ruffled, lacy underskirt that was, if possible, shorter than the dress. And the ... thing. "Is it a bra?" she asked, dubiously.
Tomoyo-chan shook her head. "It's a corset. A Merry Widow."
Oniichan was going to kill her.
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Touya wasn't thinking of killing anybody right then, except possibly his favorite person in the world.
"Your sister will be so disappointed if you don't go, To-ya," said Yuki.
Touya scowled. "I remember what happened the last time you talked me into going into something like this, Yuki. And it's not going to happen again."
Yuki smiled patronizingly at him. "I'm sure nothing like...that...will happen again, To-ya. And Akizuki-san asked you specially."
That was what worried Touya.
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"TADAAAAAIMAAAAAA~!" trilled Eriol, kicking the door shut.
Nakuru poked her head out the door, and broke into a wide, happy grin. "He's so CUTE! Wookit hims all out cold!" she squealed, bouncing into the entrance and clapping her hands in girlish pleasure. [Something she worked on every day, along with loftily ignoring Spinel's acid comments about People Who Should Be Wearing Male Clothing.] "Eriiiiool, I wanna play with him! Please! Can I play with him, too?!"
"....," said Spinel, eloquently.