title: Positioning content in :after pseudo-element absolutely relative to an inline elements top edge
body: <p>I'm looking for a CSS-only way to position content in an <code>:after</code> pseudo element absolutely relative to another - <em>possibly multiline</em> - element's top edge. The result should resemble this:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Uyu9.png" alt="Result demonstration"></p>
  
  <p>Usually there's no rocket science involved to archieve this, but I'd like to find a solution that also meets the following criteria:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Do not use the <code>:before</code> pseudoelement (this is already needed to achieve some other independent thing),</li>
  <li>do not use <code>display: block/inline-block;</code> on the inline element (because it creates ugly holes in the text flow),</li>
  <li>allow to define the width of the elements as a percentage of the containing element (at least after applying the rule of three),</li>
  <li>do not hardcode the top position/margin/padding of the <code>:after</code>-pseudo-element in any way that makes it dependent of the parent element's position inside the grandparent element, the parent element's height or the actual element's height (or to make it short: don't make anything dependent of the content),</li>
  <li>do not insert additional HTML elements, and</li>
  <li>do not add JS.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I created a <a href="http://codepen.io/boundaryfunctions/pen/zAfrK?editors=110" rel="noreferrer">Codepen </a> that hopefully makes it easier to grasp what I'm going for here.</p>
  
  <p>I know that it is easily possible to get to the result by violating one of the restrictions listed above (as demonstrated in the Codepen), but I'm looking for an <em>elegant</em> solution to this problem where this is not needed.</p>
  
  <p>After playing around with this for quite a while I'd say that it is not possible, but it would be great if someone could convince me of the contrary - or at least formally proves that it actually is impossible. Thanks a lot for any help in advance.</p>