Smile from the Heart
a CCS shortfic
by Meimi

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I sit on my perch, resting my cheeks on my hands...watching you two.

I have little else to do now, but to watch you both. To watch, wait,
bide my time...prod events in the direction I desire...

And smile.

Smile so that my true intentions will not be unmasked to you two.

It's very easy to hide my true emotions that way- to slip all my intentions
and my selfishness behind this facade I keep up...make you -think- you know who
I am. But none of you know. Even those who know my "identity," even
them...they don't know how I feel, can't see anything past the masquerade I
keep up.

I wonder if it is my own fault, for keeping up this act so well, that nobody
can understand.


And you do the same thing, do you know that?

Only with you, it is a frown...

I've seen you smile once or twice...and never once was that smile meant for
me. Only did I see it from above, on my silent watch over you two...your soft
smile is something meant only for her...

...you're growing stronger that way.

You're not afraid to show her how you feel anymore...you don't think of your
emotions as a "weakness," as something to be discarded and locked away. Not
around her.

Now you're handing another the key to your tightly shut heart.

This is no small feat...to open up to someone. You've taken your guard down
around her...you're letting her see how you really feel...who you really are.

Letting -yourself- be who you really are.

Trusting another with my heart completely- is something I have yet to manage.


Ne, a smile might not always seem like much.

Yet from you, it is something that puts all of your emotions out in the
open...something that shows everything in your heart at that moment...

But for me?

It is the pretense of an innocent child...someone who is not always me....no.
Not me at all.

I use my smile to flee from my reality...letting it shadow my true
intentions...

Emotions did not come into play when I decided on this plan, after all.


I'm sorry that you two have to do this...all because I'm selfish...

I don't always like it...I really don't like it at all, keeping all of you
in the dark, while I knowingly take advantage of your ignorance...

But I think you, too, are stronger than I am...you can hold this burden,
this burden of power that I crumbled under...

Can't you, Sakura-san?

The power that I strived for, to become the best magic-user in the
world...that power, that made me so sorrowful...that power, that made me know
the outcome of every day of my life...that ruined the person that I am...

You manage to take it all in stride.

You can say so simply, that you love the Cards...Keroberos and Yue are your
close friends...you take the power of my Cards, transforming them into your
own...and it seems as though a burden has been lifted from me, with each Card
you change...

The burden is lifted from me, but not transferred to you...it simply
vanishes, because you never once utter a word of complaint.

How can you be so strong?

...so both of you-- become happy.

Become happy together.


*"From now on, I think that I may be a 'bother' to you..."*


Sakura-san-- believe in yourself. You do that best...

Better than anyone.

So no matter what happens...no matter how selfish I have to be to get the
thing I want the most...no matter what continues to happen...

Keep believing in that happy ending...it will surely reach you, someday...

You both deserve it.


*"But because it is you...it will 'surely be all right'..."*


And when that time comes...

That day when you both discover the truth...

That day may be enough to earn a true smile from me.