"Shiroi Bara" (White Roses)
Part 1
By Kristin Huntsman
released 12/25/97

Nokoru snuck out of the mansion quietly, not wanting to get caught. Suoh probably suspected he did this, Akira would have no clue, and at the moment Nokoru had a house full of guests he didn't particularly want to find out.

He stopped finally at the rose gardens, a place he often came to when like this. It was deserted at this late hour and he had privacy. He settled gracefully back onto one of the marble benches, conscious of his moves as he seldom was otherwise.

The silk and lace of full skirts brushed around his ankles and the wig he used to extend the length of his own short blond hair draped over his shoulders and down to his waist, hair flowing over the curves hidden beneath the white dress.

It wouldn't do, he thought wryly, to let the public know that the brilliant, dignified young Chairman of CLAMP Campus had as many quirks as the rest of his family.

Fortunately money bought privacy, and when it couldn't, it bought silence.

In the moonlight that turned the white roses around him silver, Nokoru closed his eyes and pretended to be what he would look like to any observer: a beautiful young woman enjoying the night air.

He didn't get anything sexual out of this, no sense of turn-on... just a sense of freedom, of release. He didn't have to be "Nokoru Imonoyama, Chairman of CLAMP Campus, youngest son of the Imonoyama Financial Group"... didn't have to be anybody or anything. Like this, he lost some of the social weights and pressures that were his to bear from waking to sleep. <Stress relief,> he thought wistfully.

Beyond that, he liked pretty things, liked wearing nice things, looking and feeling good. And somehow that extended to women's clothing as well as men's.

<Probably in another life I was female,> he thought, tilting his face up to the air. He shivered then a little; the night air was chill. <I should have brought a shawl.>

"Are you cold, miss?" a soft voice asked. Nokoru's eyes snapped open in surprise.

Subaru Sumeragi stood before him, his usual empty expression remaining empty... or was that a trace of emotion there? Nokoru couldn't be quite sure, not in this light.

He'd thought Subaru had been in the mansion with the other Dragons... apparently he'd felt the need for solitude the way Nokoru had. The white rose garden was a very good place for silence, and the onmyouji would likely have remembered that from when he'd attended CLAMP Campus. At least his former classmate hadn't seen through the guise and guessed who Nokoru was. Subaru had always been so innocent in some things....

"A little," Nokoru admitted, his voice sounding soft and delicate as he played the part he had written for himself.

Sumeragi removed his trenchcoat and draped it around "her" bare shoulders. "May I join you?" he asked.

Nokoru nodded assent.

The onmyouji sat down on the bench next to Nokoru, with an appropriate amount of space between them. There was a silence as each viewed the garden.

"Might I have your name?" Subaru asked, voice soft but still empty. He was making polite conversation.

"Nokori," Nokoru replied, using a feminine derivative of his own name, a name he'd formulated before. "Nokori Kireisa. What is your name?"

"... Subaru Sumeragi," the young man replied.

Nokoru pondered, then ventured a question he had. "Are you here for heartbreak?"

Subaru looked at him, startled.



"This garden is good for heartbreak, so they say," Kireisa-san said quietly, waving a hand at the flowers around them. "What could be better for sorrow than to drown it in white roses?"

Subaru gave an uncomfortable laugh that sounded like an admission to his own ears. "That's true enough, I suppose."

He fell silent again for a while, watching the silvered roses sway in the slight evening breeze. They were beautiful... Hokuto would have liked them. She had, once....

"Did it hurt?" the girl in white silk asked softly.

Subaru looked at Nokori from the corner of his eye, not moving his head. She sat with impeccable posture, hands folded in her lap, looking into the distance.

"Everything that was warm in me, he killed," Subaru replied, feeling somehow that he could trust this girl. She was no Dragon or psychic... just a lonely girl who had also sought this garden of heartbreak. There was something comfortingly familiar about her that he could not name, something he was not sure he wanted to expose to the harsh light of discovery.

"'He'?" she inquired.

"'He,'" Subaru confirmed.

"Ah. I see." Kireisa-san's eyes did not leave whatever distance she was looking into. Subaru half-wondered what she was thinking.

"He killed my sister," he added, looking down at his own hands. "I did nothing...."

"Could you have?" the gentle voice asked, as if from far away. It was outside of himself, so she was so very far away....

"No," he choked, voice short and bitter.

"Then why do you blame yourself?" Nokori had turned to look at him now, and he could feel one delicate hand on his shoulder, almost intrusive but meaning well, offering support that he could not - would not - take.

"Because I should have--"

His voice broke and he didn't finish the sentence, fighting to control it. Subaru wouldn't cry. He wouldn't cry. Seishirou-san wouldn't cry....



Nokoru looked at the onmyouji sitting beside him. He'd known intellectually what had happened to Subaru. It was a different thing to see the pain, its effects, than to contemplate it from the black words on white paper he'd been given, though.

He wanted to help, if he could....

"Some people say that things are all our own choice, that we act of our free will," Nokoru said softly, thinking back to his lessons in philosophy. "Others believe that our responses are determined by the way we were raised and the conditions that have affected us prior. Still others think that a combination of the two ideas is correct." He turned his face up to the stars, to the wisps of cloud that trailed across the virgin-dark sky. "Do you honestly believe that you could have acted other than as you did, Sumeragi-san?" He paused, then added more quietly, "Being who you are and being the way you are, did you choose your own actions - or were they chosen for you?"

The Sumeragi stiffened slightly at that, then relaxed by millimeters. Nokoru waited.

"Choose your own actions, Sumeragi-san," he said quietly, and kissed the other young man.

Shortly thereafter, he left the garden.



Nokoru looked up at the branches of the wisteria tree where Suoh had first met Nagisa. <I didn't know Sumeragi's pain was that great....> His eyes closed and he bowed his head. <He was so like Akira when we were friends... before he quit school.>

That thought burned in him.

To quit school....

Subaru had been the second best student in the class, always barely half a point behind Nokoru himself. Subaru's love of learning had been just as great as Nokoru's; when he had withdrawn from the school it had been nothing less than a shock.

<But Hokuto-chan was dead,> Nokoru reminded himself. <What did he have to keep living for, to keep learning for?>

He sighed silently and leaned against the tree. Tragedy wasn't something he was accustomed to; the life of an Imonoyama seldom had room for such a thing.

And there was that sense of odd attraction to the Sumeragi... the need and utter loneliness, far beyond anything Nokoru had ever felt himself, that had been visible in the thin (too thin) frame... a pained grace that made him feel longing. A longing to touch, to heal, to be touched in turn....

It sickened Nokoru to think that he was so similar to Sakurazukamori that he could find someone's pain attractive.

But... the kiss had been very nice.

Subaru had a soft mouth and had reacted, instinct perhaps... in any case, it had been pleasant.

Nokoru shook his head to clear it of the reverie. He started walking back to the mansion, suddenly no longer in the mood to be happy. Depression set in as he thought about how he had kissed Suoh once, and how he had stolen a kiss from Akira, and now how he had kissed the head of the Sumeragi, and how all were destined for others.

It was very lonely to be different, to be an Imonoyama.

It was very lonely to subsist on stolen kisses.

Nokoru tried to bite back the tears that senselessly filled his eyes, to no avail. Was there never to be anyone for him to keep? Never to be anyone to love who was his? To be alone forever....

That last thought was more than he could bear and he broke into a run, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of one glove as he cried, denying fiercely that he was crying even as the hot salt water spilled on his cheeks.

/Never to have anyone to love./

He ran into someone at the veranda of the mansion and bounced back off of the hard chest, almost falling before his wrist was caught, balancing him.

He looked up into Suoh's face.

"Suoh..." he managed to say, then crumpled against his friend, helplessly giving his sobs into Suoh's shoulder.

"Nokoru-san..." Suoh said soothingly, one hand holding Nokoru against him, the other gently stroking his hair and back.

Suoh knew. Suoh had always known.

Nokoru gave in all the way to his tears, knowing his best friend understood.



Suoh set the two cups of tea on the low table without looking at Nokoru. He sat down on the other side of the table from his friend, who appeared for all the world to be a beautiful young lady.

It was so like Nokoru that his appearance was perfect after crying so violently.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, shrugging off his wool blazer. The right-hand side of it, over his heart, was damp from Nokoru's tears still.

"I just felt very lonely," Nokoru murmured, not raising his blue eyes from where they were fixed on the edge of the table. "Like I'll never have anyone to love... before the End."

"... Does it have anything to do with the way you're dressed?" Suoh asked.

Nokoru didn't answer.

"I've known about your... 'other wardrobe'... since we were children, Nokoru-san."

"... And Akira?"

"Ijyuin?" Suoh considered, then shook his head. "I don't think Ijyuin even knows that such a thing as cross-dressing exists."

"You may find it hard to believe, Suoh, but I'm not nearly the strangest one in my family." Nokoru said this with a slight laugh, but still he did not look up. "It seems that brilliance and eccentricity come together in the Imonoyama gene... or environment. Whichever you care to believe."

"Kaichou," Suoh implored softly, using the old name from school, "will you look at me?"

Nokoru slowly looked up until Suoh's eyes were able to catch and hold his friend's. "Do you think I'm going to stop being your friend because of your peculiarities, Kaichou?" Suoh asked, his voice very quiet.

Nokoru's stillness and depression suddenly shifted into motion and recklessness, as if the thought and eye contact had been enough to push him into responding. "Oh, hell, why not, Suoh?" he asked, standing, gesturing with one hand that, incongruous to his violent movements, looked delicate in its glove. "It's not just wearing women's clothing - it's my entire life! Do you know, I've never once been attracted to a girl? It's always been something wrong with me; I seem to have no other purpose in life except to aid members of the female sex when they're in distress, but I can't manage to fall in love with one! I'm probably not only a transvestite but homosexual as well! Why shouldn't you change your attitude about me now that you know what I've hidden about myself?"

"Because," Suoh said simply, picking up his teacup, "I already knew."

Nokoru stopped short and stared at him. Suoh took a sip of his tea.

"Nokoru-san," he asked as he set the cup back down, "did it never occur to you that I might have figured some things out? And that other things - the gaps in the facts - I might have guessed at?" Suoh smiled. "I haven't been one of the CLAMP Campus Detectives with you for all these years for nothing, after all."



"Suoh," Nokoru said, dumbfounded. "Then why did you let me kiss you, that once?" he asked, as it was the first thing that sprang to mind.

Suoh shrugged easily. "Because you wanted to kiss me." He made it sound really that simple.

"And you don't find me strange?"

Suoh gave him one of those glances in return. "Nokoru-san, I've always found you strange. It doesn't stop me from liking you and being your friend."

"Then why...?"

Suoh shrugged again. "From the beginning," he said, picking up his cup of tea again, "I've always just figured 'Kaichou wa Kaichou dakara'... 'because you're you'."

Nokoru sat back down and picked up his cup of tea as well with one gloved hand. This was definitely the strangest conversation that ever he'd had with Suoh.

For some reason, it was also one of the most reassuring.

Author's notes: I realize this is a strange subject. However, it also has a basis: in episode 17 ("Pretty Woman") of the CCD anime Nokoru dresses as a girl in order to get back Miyuki-chan's pet ferret (Yoshie-san), who hates guys. Nokoru not only looks *startlingly* natural as a girl, but after that Yoshie-san develops an attachment to Nokoru. After finding out about this, it was inevitable that I write this story. :)

I've taken enough classes in Human Sexuality to understand a little of how cross-dressers feel in general; Nokoru is some of that, but also a whole lot of other things in this story. After all, he is in a position of enormous social pressure and an escapist by nature. This fic therefore has more of a feeling of "reality" to it than my fanfics usually do, and is likely the first one in a series of three or four....

Shiroi Bara
Part 2
By Kristin Huntsman
Released December 27, 1998

Suoh knocked on the door three seconds after the bell tower had finished chiming ten p.m.

Nokoru--NokoRI--opened it, looking perfect. She was wearing something long and blue that showed off her shoulders and matched her eyes. She clutched a small purse in one hand.

"Shall we go?" Suoh asked, smiling.

"Certainly." Nokori stepped out onto the front veranda and closed the door. She was startled when Suoh offered her his arm, but took it after a second. He escorted her to the car and held the door for her as she got in. "Where are we going?" she asked a few moments later when Suoh was also in the car, fastening his own seat belt.

Suoh smiled. "It's a surprise."



CCD: Shiroi Bara 2
by Kristin Huntsman
Released December 27, 1998



Nokoru wanted to know exactly what was going through Suoh's mind. First, him asking Nokoru (dressed as a woman) out for the evening... second, treating Nokoru in the same chivalrous manner as Nagisa... and third, without a reason why. This was definitely not Suoh's usual modus operandi, and Nokoru didn't know what to make of it.

He watched the scenery passing outside of the car window. They were heading into Shinjuku, and he wondered why. Pedestrians and neon-colored shop signs and happy couples walking and talking caught his eye. A mother and father, their daughter between them, strolling down the street, a young man formally escorting a young woman down the sidewalk, and a group of three teenage girls he recognized from the campus, smiling and laughing and teasing each other. Nokoru sighed a little, watching all the life and people of Tokyo with the faintest brush of sympathetic happiness glossing up the corners of his painted lips.

"Thinking of something, Nokori-san?"

Suoh's voice and the name he used caught Nokoru a little off-guard, but he didn't let it show. "Not much. Just of how happy everyone seems tonight."

Suoh smiled to himself as he found a parking place miraculously near their destination. He helped Nokori from the car and offered her his arm as he escorted her towards the club where he had made reservations for the two of them. It was a matter of moments until they were inside and instantly seated at a private table. He might not be an Imonoyama, but Suoh and his family certainly still had more than enough money and power to get such respect.

"Suoh," his friend said softly, looking across the table at him with large blue eyes, "what are we doing here?"

Suoh picked up his menu. "Having dinner," he replied, "and perhaps dancing later, if you want."

Nokoru stilled. "Suoh..." he said, his voice losing the dulcet edge that it had when Suoh's Rijichou was pretending to be a woman.

Suoh set his menu down on the table. "Rijichou," he said, using Nokoru's formal title of Chairman, "you need to get out. Don't think that I don't know perfectly well that you spend your evenings at home in that mansion being miserable. Therefore, I am taking you on a date."

A DATE?!

And Suoh had come up with this idea on his own?!

Nokoru was surprised enough that he didn't have an easy reply for a moment.

<Well,> he supposed, <I guess after years of having to endure my whims, Suoh's absorbed things about me....>

Nokoru smiled and let the mask slip back into place. "I didn't know you danced, Suoh," he said sweetly. "Tell me, does Nagisa-jyou know about this plan of yours?"

Suoh nodded. "Of course," he said of his fiancee. "She approved of the idea."

Nokoru's eyes wandered to the dance floor. "Then, just to see you at it, I'll hold you to that offered da...." His voice trailed off. "Suoh, isn't that Akira and Utako-hime?" he asked.

Suoh's eyes followed Nokoru's.

It was.

<Damn!> he swore to himself. He repeated the oath as Ijyuin's eyes lifted from Utako-san's, as though sensing his, and searched across the club until finding him... and Nokoru.

Akira said something to Utako, indicating their direction, and the two changed direction to head directly for their table.

"Kaichou..." Suoh said.

Nokoru smiled at him, that certain glint of confident recklessness which Suoh knew all too well glinting in the blue eyes. "Let's see if we can avoid Akira figuring out who I am," he challenged.

Akira caught sight of a familiar shade of blue hair and immediately tracked it from the corner of his eye to the center of his sight. It *was* Takamura-san, he realized, pausing. Utako-san, her arm in his, stopped with him and followed his gaze.

"Isn't that Takamura-san?" she asked, seeing what he saw. "And who's the girl he's with?"

"I... don't know," Akira said, studying the blonde at his sempai's side. He didn't recognize her from the school; maybe she was a relative?

Utako's eyes narrowed a little. "Let's go meet her!" she said brightly, pulling Akira along with her as she headed for the table where the two sat.

"Wait--Utako-san!" Akira said uselessly.

Their waiter trailed along behind them.

"Ijyuin!"

Takamura-san sounded slightly discomfited, Utako noted as she continued studying the blonde at his side. Such a delicate face, such lovely long hair, such liquid blue eyes, shimmering.... If Takamura was cheating on her dear Nagisa with this woman, Utako swore, she'd rip out the bitch's hair and eyes with her own hands.

But those eyes... blue as a lake, blue as silk, blue as rain or tears... looking at her, so calmly....

<I know those eyes,> she felt. Knew them well... why did she know them?

"Ah, let me introduce you," she heard Takamura saying, calmer now, more in control. "This is a friend of mine and Nagisa-san's...."

They were the eyes of someone she knew, the conviction grew....

"Kireisa. Nokori Kireisa," the blonde said in a sweet, soft voice.

...Nokoru-san's eyes?

"Would you like to join us?" the blonde queried. "There's room enough, and I'd like to meet Suoh-san's friends...."

"Utako-san?" Akira asked, turning to her with an inquiring look on his face.

"O-of course," she said, nodding. Suoh and Nokori moved to one side of the booth and Akira and she slid in, leaving the two women at the edges of the table. Nokori was watching her as she sat....

"Excuse me, but I have to use the ladies' room!" Utako said, standing back up as soon as she'd sat down. "Nokori-san, won't you come with me? You know, girls' chat, getting to know one another while fixing makeup, that sort of thing!"

She grabbed the other woman's (woman's?) hand and dragged her off before she had a chance to protest.

The jig was up. Nokoru knew that as Utako locked the two of them into the lounge of the ladies' room.

"A very clever disguise, NokoRU-san," the young woman said as she turned to face him, hands on her hips and a slight anger on her pretty face.

Nokoru laughed. "I should have guessed you'd know who I was," he said, perching on the edge of a counter and swinging his legs underneath. "After all, you're very sharp, Ohkawa-hime."

She glared at him. "What are you doing with Takamura-san? And why are you dressed like that?!"

"No need to be angry," Nokoru said, waving his hands before him to ward off her temper. "It's innocent! Really it is! You can ask Suoh!" Utako continued glaring at him, and he sighed. "Suoh asked me to come out with him tonight. That's all, really. I had no idea he wanted to take me out on a 'date.' He says Nagisa-jyou agreed to his plan. Why, I've no idea. As for why I'm dressed like this...." He sighed again, looking down at his hands before trying to continue. They were gloved, and delicate-looking.

"It's because you're a cross-dresser, right?" Utako surprised him by asking. He looked up into a face that was smiling now. "You move too easily in skirts and heels," she explained.

Nokoru waited as she looked him up and down, examining. Finally Utako shook her head. "It's not fair that a man should look so good as a woman!" she exclaimed. In spite of himself, Nokoru smiled at her annoyed tone.

"You won't tell Akira, will you?" he asked as Utako moved to look into a mirror, touching her lower lip with one finger, carefully smudging the burgandy color applied to it.

"Nope," she promised, the reflection of her eyes flickering to him. "I like him naive."

Suoh waited nervously for Nokoru and Utako to return from the ladies' room. And Akira's questioning didn't make him any more at ease.

"Where did you meet Kireisa-san, Takamura-sempai?" Akira asked, his eyes innocent of any clue.

Suoh coughed. "We've known one another for several years now," he replied, trying hard not to get caught in a lie, though he couldn't exactly tell Ijyuin the truth either. "She's a friend of Nokoru-san's...."

"Really?" Akira looked thoughtful. "I wonder why he never mentioned her... but then, all women are friends of Nokoru-san's, aren't they?" Akira smiled brightly, significantly adding, as always, to Suoh's blood pressure.

"Oh, here are Utako-san and Nokori-san," Suoh said with relief, standing as the two "ladies" returned to the table. From the smiles and hints of mischief on both of their faces, he guessed that whatever had occured in the restroom had gone well. And Utako-san knew. He could see that in the gleam in her eye.

Then he groaned inwardly, realizing that with the evening had gone from a simple date to a game for the women of "teasing Akira."

/Nokoru-san...!/

Nokori smiled, knowing exactly what was going through Suoh's mind as she sat back down next to him. And she couldn't very well help it that he was right, now could she?

Her smile at him was perfectly innocent. Suoh looked less than convinced.

She and Nagisa, the best of friends now, used the familiar "-chan" with one another. She made up a personal history for herself which included being a childhood friend of the youngest Imonoyama before she'd had to move away to America at age seven. She'd only just come back to Japan recently, she added, for an extended visit to family. They ordered their dinners. She utterly charmed Akira as "Rijichou's friend," and even Suoh eventually relaxed a bit. Utako completely played along.

After dessert (a chocolate cake that was nice, but not quite as good as the ones Akira made) had been delivered and devoured, along with two glasses each of a very nice, very bubbly champagne, Utako noticed the band and sent over a whispered request via their waiter. A moment later, the song which Nokori knew to be Utako and Akira's began playing, and the Treasurer was led rather willingly along to the dance floor, where the two danced a private waltz together.

Nokori noted with a smile the aura of sparkling happiness Utako gave off at being with her fiance, and sighed wistfully. The two of them looked so nice together--she was a little envious.

Suoh stood as the waltz ended and another began. "Shall we?" he asked, offering his hand to Nokoru. The blond blinked. "You were going to hold me to that dance, I believe," he reminded his Rijichou.

"I was, wasn't I?" the other asked in bemusement, and stood, accepting the hand. Suoh smiled and led his friend towards the dance floor, where somehow they fit together and moved wonderfully as a couple. Suoh knew better than to ask how Nokoru had learned to follow rather than lead in formal dancing. Either way, the Chairman was a remarkable dancer.

They moved around the floor easily, Suoh's hold on Nokoru impersonal yet friendly, while the other relaxed into his touch, trusting Suoh implicitly. Every time they passed Ijyuin and Utako-san, the latter gave Suoh a small, wicked grin, knowledge flashing in her dark eyes, and Suoh sighed. He didn't want to know what report Utako might give to Nagisa-san later of this evening. As it was, Nokoru being so close and in the female role was disconcerting enough. Especially since, beneath whatever light perfume Nokoru was wearing to complete his role, Suoh could smell the other's natural scent and realized disturbingly for the first time that the very way Nokoru smelled was androgynous.

Suoh sighed quietly to himself. He'd thought he didn't have any problems with this... after all, he'd known about Nokoru's cross-dressing since elementary school, and he was fairly sure he didn't have any prejudices against Kaichou's suspected homosexuality. So why, then, was he feeling so agitated? The only answer he could find was that perhaps he didn't have a problem with Nokoru's actions but rather one with his own reactions, and that worried him more than the other possibility.

Nokoru kept his eyes fixed on Suoh's jacket, not daring to look up. His heart was going wild, and he knew far better than to trust himself on some things. But he kept his nervousness from his body and moved easily, his mind not even touching on remembering the steps and how to follow, his body simply doing it. Suoh would notice if he tensed up in any way or seemed to be doing anything but being absorbed in the dancing.

Silk against his ankles as they glided across the floor... and Suoh's hand on his waist, Suoh's heartbeat touching his where their palms met.

<I am homosexual,> Nokoru thought, knowing that full well now rather than simply suspecting it. He was reacting entirely too much to the simple physical contact with his friend, and a part of his mind, walled off from the rest and lined with math and science and all the simple, logical things he loved, was calmly taking notes and calculating the meaning of each urge and sensation.

<I owe Suoh a lot for simply accepting me the way he does. But I think I have to ask him not to take me out like this ever again. The last thing the school needs is anything about my oddities coming to light, and my feeling like this towards Suoh, of everyone, is dangerous. Besides, Nagisa-jyou....>

Nokoru smiled a little to himself and shut what he was feeling completely away in that walled room, just for now. <I have no place to fall in love, and no one to fall in love with in any case. Give it up for just now, Rijichou, and wait to find someone appropriate first.>

Somehow the night ended well, and "Nokori" and Suoh parted from Ijyuin and Utako-san without further incident. Suoh sighed in relief as he and Nokoru drove back to the Chairman's mansion at CLAMP Campus. Nokoru was oddly silent through the drive, looking out the window rather than at Suoh.

"Nokoru-san?" Suoh asked.

"Yes, Suoh?"

"Is something wrong?"

"No." Nokoru finally turned to look at Suoh. "I was just thinking life was easier, at least for me, when we were children."

Suoh shifted gears and accelerated. "How so?"

"I didn't have to worry about who I was," the Chairman sighed, and looked back out the window. Suoh hesitated to tread in the deep waters of Nokoru's blue eyes, and let the matter alone until Nokoru broke the silence one last time, when they were just pulling up in front of the mansion.

"Suoh?" Nokoru asked.

"Yes, Kaichou?"

Nokoru looked down at the delicate hands in his lap. "I had a wonderful time tonight. Thank you very much for inviting me out." Suoh watched as a lock of the blond hair slipped forward. "Please, don't do it again."

Suoh blinked. "Why not?"

Nokoru sighed. "Because I could come too easily to see what Nagisa-jyou sees in you, Suoh, and neither of us needs that. But thank you for tonight."

The Chairman slipped out of the door. "I'll see you in the office tomorrow, Suoh," Nokoru said quietly. "Good night."

"Good night, Kaichou," Suoh responded, and the door closed. He watched until Nokoru was safely inside the mansion, then eased the car into first and left, disturbed.

Author's Ramblings: A year and two days after the first, here is the next part of Shiroi Bara. Hope you enjoyed. Happy holidays!

Shiroi Bara
Part 3
By Kristin Huntsman
Released June 29, 1999

Nokori looked in the mirror. Her eyes blinked, and she almost didn't know the person looking back at her.

Not that she wasn't used to this reflection, but....

Perhaps she wasn't used to her reflection being this daring.

She took a deep breath, tried to steady her nerves and gather suddenly rare courage together, and smiled. It looked forced, she knew, but it was the best she could do for the moment.

Turning from the mirror, Nokori walked out the door.



Shiroi Bara 3
by Kristin Huntsman
posted June 29, 1999



Suoh did another sweep of the Campus through the surveillance cameras. He wouldn't ordinarily be here in the Main Security Room so late at night, but the chief security officer had fallen sick and his first subordinate was out of touch, on holiday in Hokkaidou somewhere. And these days, with a certain sword held theoretically safe below the Campus grounds and predator Dragons wandering around Tokyo, Suoh didn't feel easy leaving the Campus to its own security devices even for a night.

Nagisa had smiled, assured him she understood, and planned to stay at the Ijyuins' that night. If Suoh wasn't there to protect Nagisa himself, there was none better than Akira in whose hands to place the safety of his fiancee. So Suoh had no worries on that score.

He sipped his tea and let the pictures flicker past him, one at a time, working their way steadily through each quadrant. It still amazed him, when he bothered to think about it, how many cameras there were on CLAMP Campus. With modern technology, most of the current 500,203 were no bigger than a button, and many were significantly smaller.

The Chairman's mansion was dark, Suoh noted from one of the exterior shots of the building as the cameras swept over that sector. He wondered where Nokoru was. Not working late, that was for certain... though, to be fair, the Chairman had put in several all-nighters to hassle over the paperwork and running of the Campus when it was necessary. More than Suoh and Akira combined, come to think of it. <He finally found something to take seriously,> Suoh mused as he set his cup back down on its saucer. <That and the End of the World.>

But the Chairman's offices, too, were dark, and there was no one in the Clock Tower either.

<Where are you, Nokoru-san?> Suoh wondered, and accessed the perimeter logs. No one of Nokoru's physical description had left the grounds since 5 o'clock, when Suoh had last seen the young Chairman. <So he's still on Campus. But where?>

Nokoru stepped inside the club, more than a little self-conscious. While by now wearing a female appearance was second nature to him, his current attire was a bit more provocative than he was used to. He wasn't entirely sure what had made him choose it to begin with. Still trying to calm his nerves, as he hadn't been able to during the short walk to the club, he went over to the bar and ordered a Shirley Temple. The bartender gave him an odd look, as though surprised to have something so blatantly non-alcoholic ordered, and Nokoru made a mental note to review the alcoholic consumption at this venue. It was supposed to be primarily for the students, most of whom were underage.

He paid for the drink and walked away to the balcony which overhung the dance floor below, sipping the red sweetness as he watched students and staff members twist and gyrate to the throbbing music which pulsed through the speakers. His heart beat faster with the music and he wondered, toying with the straw, why he'd never come here before.

Nokoru sipped at the drink again as his eyes scanned the crowd below, picking out a girl, dressed in brilliant greens and whites with splashes of loose gold turning her into a living painting as she whirled. And over there was a boy with hair dark as midnight wearing all black, save for the loose teal shirt he wore bloused over his dark tanktop. The boy opposite him, also dark-haired, matched costumes with a blood-red shirt over his black. They appeared to be twins. Nokoru stared at them, entranced. They were beautiful... so wild, so free.

So lovely....

The gold bracelet around his right wrist slipped down his arm, distracting him. When Nokoru looked back up the twins had vanished. He felt a keen pang at their loss. He looked back at the bracelet and adjusted it, turning the soft gold circle so that the clasp was hidden on the underside of the arm. Suoh had given him this bracelet; Suoh and Akira and Utako and Nagisa, long long ago.... He smiled to think of those days when things had been so innocent and easy and he'd never felt left out of life by being different than them.

Not like now, when Akira and Utako were newlyweds, Suoh and Nagisa affianced... and he felt left behind as they moved on into places where he could not follow.

<What is there on Campus that Nokoru-san might go to?> Suoh pondered. There weren't any festivals planned for tonight, at least none that he was aware of, and the Chairman hadn't mentioned any specific plans.

"He'll go to people," Suoh said aloud, and concentrated his search on the places on Campus which would be open at night. Not the Haagen Daaz ice cream parlor, he saw after a quick check, and not the ice-skating rink either, though quite a few athletic figures whirled around it even at this time in the evening. But wait--down the street from the rink....

"Club Phoenix." Suoh smiled and typed in the commands which switched the main viewing screens to the interior cameras of the dance club. It took a few seconds' work to discount most of the people on the dance floor and start searching the bar and balconies. And--oh.

Suoh's eyes spotted the figure, as achingly beautiful as Nagisa, leaning against the balcony rail, facing the dance floor, drink held in one hand and face sad. <Nokori.>

He focused the camera on her and zoomed in a little bit, to get a better idea of what might be causing his Kaichou's sadness, if he could. Suoh would have choked on his tea, had he been sipping it at that moment, when he saw what Nokori was wearing. The white silk shell blouse was okay, but the tight black leather skirt which stopped at mid-thigh was definitely not.

<Rijichou?!> Suoh thought, dazed. And then he tried very hard not to notice how well Noko...ri's legs were shaped beneath the stop of that short skirt.

The dance floor was playing a Kenny Loggins song whose sole purpose was to make the feet itch to move when Aoka saw the "girl" on the balcony. He watched her as he waited for his twin to finish getting his drink. Very beautiful, he decided... too beautiful to be a woman, which was how he had known. That and a sense of sympatico. Her sadness felt like a knife through him.

"Ao?" his brother asked, approaching with a glass held in his hand.

"Her." Aoka nodded at the beautiful figure who had raised her glass to her lips again, sipping demurely through a straw even as her eyes searched the crowd below for something he didn't think she'd find there. Her feelings rolled off of her body in thick, almost visible waves for those who had eyes to see.

Akasui looked the female figure up and down, then shook his head. "Not my type... or yours," he added.

"Don't be an ass," his twin responded. "One, she's as female as you or I. Two, she's hurting. Three, you know exactly how she feels right now, Aka." His glare was pointed, and Akasui adjusted the collar of his red top in response. He hated it when Aoka pulled this on him, making him feel guilty for other people's pain. And he always gave in to his only brother; they both knew it was only a matter of time.

"What's she doing here, then?" he asked. "This isn't that kind of club."

"I don't know," his brother said simply, a cliche that made Akasui's nerves raw from dislike, "but I'm going to find out."

Damned with a brother whose heart was so open, Aka had no choice but to follow.

"Miss?" someone asked. "Miss, are you alright?" It took a moment for Nokoru to realize the voice was talking to him and to look up.

It was the beautiful black-haired boy from before, the one in the teal shirt, with his red-shirted twin behind him. Nokoru wondered for a flash of a second how they had managed to know he was looking at them. "I... I'm fine," he said, quiet.

The boy looked steadily at him--his eyes were a very deep color, Nokoru could see now, a very deep blue, like the edges of the midnight sky. He wanted to glance at the other twin's eyes to see if they were the same color, but this one held his gaze so steadily that he was afraid to breathe. They might vanish if he breathed. "My name's Aoka," the boy said. "What's yours?"

"Nokoru," Nokoru said without a thought. He suddenly wasn't Nokori; Nokori was a mask for those who needed it. Aoka... Aoka didn't. He was smiling.

"I thought so," the boy said. How old was he? Not more than sixteen, surely. At twenty-two, Nokoru suddenly felt old. How much of his life had he wasted in not knowing who he was when this boy, half a decade his junior, already knew himself?

"This is my brother Akasui," Aoka said. "Will you join us for a drink?"

Somehow Nokoru accepted.

Suoh recognized the twins who had, for his lack of a better term, "picked up" Nokori: Akasui Takano and his younger brother Aoka. They were juniors at the high school, classroom Z, and were both highly empathic and extremely affectionate of one another. Rumor around the students and staff had it that they were lovers, but of course Suoh never listened to rumor except when it was useful.

He did wonder why they had homed in on the beautiful transvestite, but put it down to their alleged empathic abilities. The three moved away from the ledge and Suoh switched cameras to follow them to the small tables that dotted the upper level of the dance club. They somehow managed to find an empty table with three of the puritanical high stools around it. Suoh flicked a switch and turned a knob as the volume slowly came up until he could hear their conversation over the low throb of dance music in the background.

"Nokoru-san," Aoka said softly, "I won't ask who you are. I think I already know, but... none of us here need it to be said."

"Thank you," Nokoru replied. This boy had power, he recognized, some kind of power similar to that which he himself had. It was something of the psychic and something of the magnetic, all wrapped up in a beautiful cage of body and mind. Aoka and his beautiful twin were "familiar"... though Nokoru didn't know how.

"Because we're like you," Akasui said, speaking for the first time, startling Nokoru. His voice and his twin's were the same; only the manner of speech was different. Aoka spoke with gentle politeness; Akasui was rougher, stronger.

"Like me?" Nokoru asked. Akasui's eyes were the color of a goblet of red wine, to be drank in a deep draught.

"Different." The burgandy eyes' intensity was drowning. "Special, if you will. Attracted to the same gender. Outcast, perhaps, and slightly lost sometimes because of it." A smile curved Akasui's lips, softened the harshness of his gaze. "And beautiful."

Nokoru found himself blushing at this young man's compliment like he was a teenage girl on a first date with her crush.

"Nokoru-san." Aoka paused and looked at his brother for a second; they had, at least to Nokoru's best estimation, a quick agreement of wills. Aoka looked back at Nokoru. "What name do you go by?"

"Nokori." Nokoru didn't give the surname, even if it was false, just as they hadn't. This felt like a one-night stand, anonymous and based on agreement rather than love. Was it? Would it be so bad if it was? Was it right for him to take advantage of two teenagers, if that was the case? /And was this what he needed?/

"It's a pretty name," Aoka said.

Nokoru nodded. "Thank you."

"Do you love anyone?"

The question was so gentle it couldn't hurt. But it did take consideration. There was his family, of course, and Nokoru cared for them very much. And there were others he cared for very much, too... Idomu, Casablanca, Utako, Nagisa, Akira, Suoh... Suoh. Was that love? Did he love Suoh, or was it just the ache of remembering that one dance in Suoh's arms?

"I don't know," Nokoru replied, and Akasui understood now why his brother had homed in on the beautiful Chairman. They both knew who he was, of course, but as long as no one said it aloud it was alright and didn't matter.

<He doesn't belong to us, Aoka,> he warned.

<I know... but he hurts so much, and he's so lonely inside. Please...?>

<You're too gentle. Sometimes people need their own paths.>

His twin's thoughts curled around his, as intimate as any physical caress they'd shared. <Aka, he's like us. Can't you feel it? If we took him in, he might awaken... we wouldn't be alone and neither would he. At least for a little while.> That thought was wistful, reminding Akasui of how different the two of them were from everyone they knew, and how that ache was only filled for them in one another. No one understood....

<If he falls into synch with us, then.... And no reaching to him to pull him into it. He's with us on his own or not at all.>

<That's cruel, Aka.>

<One of us has to be.>

"Nokoru," Akasui said aloud into the silence, "will you dance with us?"

"I... don't know how to do this kind of dancing," Nokoru said, gesturing at the dance floor with one hand. "Only formal...." Akasui's ruby eyes were on him, not accepting the excuses, demanding an answer. "I'll try."

"Then let's go." Akasui stood, followed by his twin. Nokoru stood as well, suddenly in the middle of some kind of test. He didn't know what the objective of it was, or the prize. But to back out would lose him this company, these two boys who seemed to know what he was, to understand. He looked at them for a second, a mere few centimeters taller than them, wishing he understood. But he didn't and had no choice but to follow blindly and hope, trust that Aoka and Akasui would lead him to the exit of this dark tunnel.

The three of them went down to the dance level, red Akasui before him, blue Aoka behind, and somehow found a clear space in the center. They waited out the last dregs of a Metallica song. Nokoru closed his eyes. He really didn't know how to do this kind of dancing, and now something vital seemed to depend on it. Even with his eyes closed he could see the twins. The three of them formed a triangle, with Akasui before him to his right, Aoka to his left. He didn't know what they expected of him. He wished he did. If he failed this test... it would simply be awful. The most awful thing that had ever happened to him. Worse than dissolving the Detectives in sixth grade. Worse than thinking Akira had been caught as 20 Masks, that one time when it had almost been his fault. Worse than when they'd thought Nagisa and Utako had died in a plane crash.

Worse than leaving Suoh's arms after dancing in them....

Nokoru opened his eyes and forced that thought as far back as he could squish it into the crevices of his mind. There was no Suoh.

The music started.

The song was familiar, the beat went through Nokoru. He could do this. His eyes drifted shut. His body began to move.

Twisting, moving, arms and legs in motion, being pulled along by the tide of the music, slowly submerging into the sensual side of it. Nokoru kept his eyes closed and let himself be lost in the sound, transformed by the silk butterfly sound of it. Sweet, seductive music....

Aoka watched as Nokori fell completely under the music. <She's gone.>

<Gone farther than we ever have, love. Do you really want someone who's so desperate to forget?> His twin molded to his body from behind.

<Oh, but I want to help....>

<You can't help anyone until they want help, Ao.>

<I know. That's why it hurts.>

Suoh watched his Rijichou, caught up in the music now. Nokori's pale cheeks were stained with a gentle flush, her lips full and slightly pouty as she breathed in and out, whirling in time to the sound. Her moves were sensual now, sexual. Suoh found it hard to reconcile the creature on the screen before him with the gentlemanly Chairman of CLAMP Campus. And he was feeling more and more like a spy into a part of Nokoru's life where he shouldn't be....

A figure made its way through the crowd which had circled the beautiful dancer. Slow and sure as molasses, he made his way to the center and watched with thick, needy eyes the silk-and-leather beauty before him.

He stepped into the circle.

Suoh stared, dry-mouthed, at the figure which danced with Nokori. A butterfly caress of fingers, no more, and he...she opened her eyes to the stranger and began to dance with him.

<Kaichou, no! Not him--! Don't you know who that is?>

<No,> Suoh realized. <Your mind only remembers women....>

Akasui couldn't help but stare at the pair who vogued together. Granted, they looked well as a set; one tall and dark, the other small and blonde....

And Kuroki was known to swing both ways....

But....

Something inside him twisted, and shuddered, and he was suddenly very grateful for his twin's protection.

Nokoru studied the stranger with him, and smiled hesitantly. The other smiled back. They both enjoyed the dance. And whoever the other was, he moved well. Was he a teacher on Campus? A student?

Was he someone who could Nokoru's own, and belong to no other the way Su--

<Could he be with me alone, only?> Nokoru wondered.

The other showed no signs, gave off no body language to speak of any hesitation in his attraction to Nokoru.

Their song ended with a flourish, Nokoru in the stranger's arms.

His heart beat fast.

--Author's Note--

After a while in coming, here is Shiroi Bara (White Roses) 3. I hope you have enjoyed, and yes, I do have plans for the series to keep (slowly) continuing. After all, I have that scene from part 5 already in my head!