Warning: This vignette contains spoilers through book 3 of CLOVER.  You 
have been warned; proceed at your own peril.





		       How I wish to make you happy,
		     Though I won't be able to see you.


Leaves: a Clover fanfic
posted April 16, 1999
by Kristin Huntsman


	The white covers rustled sleepily as Kazuhiko turned the slightest 
bit in his dreaming.
	Suu lay on her stomach beside him, chin propped on one fist as she 
watched him.  "Did Oruha lay here?" she wondered.  "Did she watch you like 
this?"
	She watched his chest rise and fall, she watched his lips move in 
silent dream-talk, she watched his left hand, the one that was real, 
uncurl.  Clutched in it was the green leaf which Kou had given him.
	"One leaf," Suu murmured.  "One leaf for Oruha."
	There were hundreds of One-Leafs, she knew, but only Oruha had ever 
mattered to her.  Oruha with the voice and the songs and the love for 
Kazuhiko....
	Oruha, her first friend.
	"Would you blame me for taking your place like this?" she 
wondered.  "I'm still a child.
	"Or would you smile at me and say it was good for me, good for 
Kazuhiko?"
	Suu smiled, faintly.  "Maybe you might even join us."
	She sighed again.  "Oruha...."
	"Oruha..." Kazuhiko echoed, murmuring his dead lover's name in his 
dreams.
	Suu reached out a hand to brush the lines from her lover's 
forehead.  "Sleep easily," she advised him in a gentle voice.  "Remember 
only the love, not the pain."
	The mattress creaked a little as she got up to go look in the 
mirror.  Over her shoulder she could see Kazuhiko's reflection.  He snored 
a bit, mumbled something, and turned over, apparently taking her advice.  
Suu stared at her face, remembering Oruha's.  She raised a hand to trace 
its lines.  Her hair was pale and fine, straight.  Oruha's had been lush 
and black, thick and vibrant with curls.  Her lips were pink; Oruha's had 
been red.  Green eyes met her, rather than storm-gray.  And her body, 
though older now, still had the lines of a child's.  Oruha had been all 
oman.
	"Do I love him because of him, or do I love him because you did, 
Oruha?" she asked.  "Do I kiss his lips because I need them or because they 
hold the memory of you?"
	She kissed the mirror, but wasn't able to imagine it was Oruha.
	Never Oruha.
	Suu went back to Kazuhiko's bed, where he lay dreaming.


			    I want to be happy.
			    I want to be happy.
			I want to be happy with you.


Author's Note:  An alternate universe, where Suu survived the end of book 
2.  I personally hold to the theory that she may be around (the leaf didn't 
disappear from Kazuhiko's hand, did it? ;) still.  This was written at 
Rika's request for a 1x0x4 fic... I hope you enjoyed.