Title: too perfect
Series: Cardcaptor Sakura
Characters: Syaoran, Sakura, and mentions of others
Rating: PG13 to be safe
Genre: Romantic Fluff. Yes, there is no angst. I think.
Warnings: Inaccuracies, OOC-ness, nonsensicality and stuff. As per usual.
Summary: There are a lot of things that Syaoran Li never knew that he did not know about himself ever since he met Sakura Kinomoto, but right now, he is pretty sure that he is happy with not knowing everything. Episode 57, SyaoSaku, oneshot.
Syaoran Li is not the kind of guy who was raised up to like silly, sappy, fluffy things like teddy bears and pink cellphones and all those other romantic clichés one would usually see in all those silly romantic stories he was also not taught to like. But here he was now, miles away from what he might have once called home, sprawled lazily across his bed, pressing the button on the phone he held in his hands, repeating that one message over and over: "Hello, this is Kinomoto. You left before we could decide on the meeting time and place for -chan, Eriol-kun and I…"
It was quite shocking, how such a short span of time could just change everything and turn everything he ever knew on its head. It seemed like just yesterday and forever ago, that he was the rival, the opposite, the loner never to be in her good graces (not that he particularly wanted to be in her good graces at the time, but still). Now he was the one by her side, the one she trusted even before, when she had no good reason to. The him from a few years ago would have said his soft spot for the girl was embarrassing, but the him from right now would have told the him from the past to just shut up.
There is a teddy bear on the desk beside all the books and paraphernalia; he doesn't even know how it got there, even though a less rational, more passionate side of himself that he doesn't even want to confirm existed says that he should know; after all, it was he who bought that teddy bear making kit (another one of the things that he was definitely born not to like), it was he who stitched it up, it was he who looked at it every night and only remembered her. Not that he was going to say it to anybody, of course.
He was also not the kind of person who visited teddy bear museums (even if, well, they were free) and fell hostage to such big, green, warm eyes (the thought of him actually saying her eyes were warm actually still did make him feel weird and a little bit embarrassed inside, really). He was a fighter, the serious, more collected side of his four rather upbeat and rather weird sisters. In fact, he was here to beat her in the first place, not – not this. Whatever 'this' was, he wasn't sure, and he wasn't sure whether he should be regretting it either, because it was getting harder and harder to imagine spending life without her, without that smile and that cheerful presence that was so uniquely hers.
It is that presence that used to grate on his nerves that he now has the privilege of seeing in a completely different light: how she smiles so brightly when she cheers him on his turn on the horizontal bars, how she sends a laugh his direction when they both do horribly on the flute, how her face blanks out in front of a math problem he could solve without blinking an eyelash (and that horrible feeling that tugs on his heartstrings that he feels when he walks away from her, unable to do anything but look back). It should embarrass him that his every other thought is of her, but he finds himself unable to stop – and he didn't even know he can do that either.
They go to the teddy bear museum the next day, and as per usual, he can't help but find himself looking at her. He knows that his predicament right now is like a moth to a flame, immune to everything but that one bright light, but all he can do is watch her from afar and watch his heart slowly but surely fade away. He knows it is clichéd for him to say so, but he can't change the way that his heart beats staccato when she smiles, when she waves at them from behind a gigantic bear, how it goes into overdrive when he sees her with that Hiiragizawa, how it stops when he sees her sad and how thinking of her when he doesn't need to just makes him want to rip his hair out.
There is also that way when she – or someone else – is very close to finding out the truth, and his heart clenches and his legs send him somewhere far away, somewhere where he could calm down the beat of his heart and compartmentalize all the incessant emotions. It is a habit he is unable to break, and one he regrets when she catches up to him, asking why on earth did he have to run so fast. It is a habit he regrets even more when, by some fluke of destiny or bad luck or something else he can't explain, they end up locked in the elevator.
Cell phones and emergency lines – their only other means of escape – have been exhausted but a few moments ago, and there was nothing else to do now but wait, the ticking of the clock making the patience and the silence even more unbearable. He is used to such things, having trained under the strictest teachers about the sternest manners of holding oneself. He is used to standing ramrod straight against a wall and stay that way without having to say anything. He is used to the cold, to the dark, to small, confined enclosures – all the things that she is not used to, apparently, if the sniffing sobbing sound she makes is any indication.
He finds himself saying words that probably won't be out of place in those telenovelas his sisters loved to watch back in Hong Kong – don't cry, they'll come back for us for sure – using his power to call forth a flame, and it was worth it, if only to see her smile again. It should make him embarrassed that he was sitting on a frilly handkerchief beside the same girl he once used to loathe; it should make him even more embarrassed that said girl shared half of the cookie her first love made for her with him. But it does not – his heart still beats, staccato against his chest – and somewhere deep in his mind he finds himself giving in, surrendering to that smile and those eyes and that voice he is pretty sure he can hear in his sleep.
It is a second, merely a second, and there are those flashing lights, and the elevator walls he once thought were so strong suddenly make way and disappear, and then – and then she is gone. And then he is looking down, his mind replaying her falling down into nothingness over and over, and he can feel the hurt and the pain and the regret all at once, can feel how his mind blanks out and his eyes blur and then –
"SAKURAAAAAA!"
His head is slumped down on his shoulders as he kneels there on the ground, grieving for the love he never had; then he hears a sound from below, and his peripheral vision sees a pink ball and what seems to be – her legs? He looks up slowly, carefully, afraid that she is merely a vision that will shatter at the slightest movement, until she smiles at him, saying something about how she used one of her cards, but of course his mind doesn't hear the words anymore. His mind only sees her, just like it always has, and he gets this sudden urge to hold her close, which he does.
He can vaguely hear himself saying "I'm glad", and then everything else just came by so quickly – the elevator doors sounded, the lights were on again, the doors opened and he let go of her as if her touch burned him (and maybe it did, since he could feel electricity buzzing through his hands and he feared that she felt it too), and then it was off to the trains again, bye-bye, see you in school! again, and then he was home again, right where it started, back to square one, and the cell phone rang.
It was her. Of course. She was the one who gave him that cell phone, so of course she was on his speed dial (and, apparently, he was on hers – another one of the things that made him feel funny inside). She was saying something about how it made her happy that he called out her name in the elevator. Saying something about how if he didn't mind, could she call him Syaoran-kun starting from now? It made his heart beat erratically again, and he said something like "whatever you wish" – one of his default autopilot answers – and she had smiled (he didn't just hear it over the phone, he could feel it now) and said see you tomorrow! and hung up. He willed himself to walk to the window, open it, feel the breeze waft over his face and tell himself that this wasn't a dream.
There are a lot of things that Syaoran Li never knew that he did not know about himself ever since he met Sakura Kinomoto. He never knew that all it took was a pair of green eyes to complete his day, that a smile was enough to make his heart beat fast and the thought of losing her made him feel empty inside. He doesn't know that he ever had it in itself to buy a teddy bear kit, to own a pink cellphone, and go to a teddy bear museum merely because of one girl who he can't exactly forget about. But right now, with her voice in his mind and her face in his dreams, he is pretty sure that he is content with not knowing everything.
fin.
A/N: First things come first: the nonsensical title comes from SuJu M's new song "Perfection", which can also be translated into "too perfect". XD It doesn't fit with the fic in any way, but I feel that this is how Syaoran-kun's mind's eye views Sakura-chan. Plus, he's Chinese! ^_^ Never mind that he's from Hong Kong and the guys in SuJu are mostly Korean-born, I still think it fits, somehow. The lyrics start with "she caught my attention". Indeed.
My first-ever fandom, ahahaha! ^w^ I wrote fic for this five years ago, but the stuff I wrote back then was so embarrassing that I don't even want to talk about it. orz Episode 57 ("Sakura, Syaoran and the Elevator") was my favorite episode of all time – naturally, since I was such a SyaoSaku shipper back then. You could say that was my first-ever OTP, and I guess I never fell out of my love for it even now. _ So, well, this is how I write him now, I guess? I hope you like it! ^_^
Reviews are very much loved and appreciated!